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THE LAST DITCH 


















Page ig 

Hildreth making a sensational thirty-yard run to the line 


THE LAST DITCH 


A STORY OF PANAMA 
AND THE CANAL ZONE 


By 

J. RAYMOND ELDERDICE 



RAND McNALLY & COMPANY 

NEW YORK 


CHICAGO 


Copyright. 1915, 

By Rand McNally & Company 




r«*« 


Chicago 



M 10 1915 


©r,I,A406253 

^ t 


THE CONTENTS 


PART I 

CHAPTER page 

I. His Father’s Letter 1 

II. The Decision 10 

III. The Yellow Streak 17 

IV. Disowned! 30 

V. A Quick Decision 40 

VI. Strictly Steerage 54 

VII. The Treachery of the Panamanian ... 64 

PART II 

VIII. In a Strange Land 75 

IX. Hildreth to the Rescue 84 

X. The “Old-Timer” 92 

XI. The Lottery of Life 103 

PART III 

XII. The Old Bitterness 116 

XIII. By the Sweat of his Brow 129 

XIV. Bob’s Story 142 

XV. Bob Decides 151 

XVI. Hildreth’s Plot 158 

XVII. Kidnaped in Colon 167 

XVIII. The Escape 176 

XIX. The Chagrin of Nunez 185 

XX. Bob’s Country 194 

PART IV 

XXL Blown out of a Job 205 

XXII. His First Pay Day 217 

XXIII. The Thief 227 

XXIV. Hildreth’s Promise 239 

XXV. The Kidnaping of Neva 249 


V 


vi THE CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXVI. The Battle 260 

XXVII. The Last Ditch 270 

XXVIII. Back at Ballard 280 

XXIX. The End 289 


To 

father 

in grateful appreciation 
of his never-failing help and advice 
I affectionately dedicate 
this book 


THE LAST DITCH 


Part I 
CHAPTER I 
HIS father’s letter 

“ A LETTER fo’ Mistah Carvel Hildreth!” 

‘ ‘ Marcus Aurelius ’ ’ J ones, venerable colored 
sweep of Denning, the junior dormitory, who was 
honored with such a dignified name because of his 
quaint philosophy, bowed with deep reverence on 
the threshold of Captain Bill Hoke’s room, where 
several of that football leader’s teammates were 
gathered. 

The big, serious fellows who were to battle on the 
gridiron the next day for the glory of the Gold and 
Green were striving to appear unconcerned, some- 
thing quite out of the question, as the conversation 
inevitably veered around to conjectures of Hamil- 
ton’s line, the speed of the ends, or the weight of the 
backfield. Besides, in the corridors of Denning, 
Wilton, Dwight, and MacCabe the excited students 
were eagerly devouring news of them, and out under 
the white glare of the arc lights in Campus Square 
the yell leaders were urging the enthusiastic rooters 
to shout themselves hoarse for Bill Hoke’s team! 

College and campus throbbed and pulsed with 
the spirit of the big game. For three weeks the 
1 


2 


THE LAST DITCH 


squad had toiled under the caustic commands of 
the slave-driving coaches; around the five players 
from last season a fast, alert team had been built, 
the raw material had been battered into shape for 
scrimmage, and the loyal scrubs had fought fiercely 
against the ’Varsity, to develop them for the hard 
work of the season. There had been blackboard 
talks at night, and the fellows had come to dream 
of mass plays, cross-bucks, and the forward pass, 
while Captain Hoke wildly muttered signals in his 
sleep. 

Downtown, the strong Hamilton eleven, with a 
string of coaches, trainers, and rubbers, was quar- 
tered at the Hotel Central, in the lobby of which the 
carload of Red and Blue rooters sang and cheered. 
The town was full of Ballard graduates who had 
come back for the game. They dropped into Billy 
Treglor’s eating place as of old, to renew their 
college memories. There were glad reunions on the 
street, with staid gentlemen piling into Dari McCar- 
thy’s ramshackle hack for a ride up to College Hill. 

Head Coach Collister, coming from Captain 
Hoke’s room after a final warning to the football 
fellows to be in bed by ten o’clock, was caught on 
the steps of Denning and forced to make a speech. 
He was cheered loudly when he announced that 
every man was in great trim, and that the eleven 
could be depended on to fight until the last second 
of play. Then the students massed under Hoke’s 
windows and cheered each player and substitute, 
until the yell leaders led them away. 


HIS FATHER’S LETTER 


3 


It was no wonder, then, that the dignified Marcus 
Aurelius Jones felt awed as he entered Bill Hoke’s 
room, for he was in the presence of Ballard’s hero 
throng. Besides Captain Hoke, the fullback, there 
was '‘Cupid” Cavanaugh, the fast little left end, 
“Biff” Hogarth, a giant right guard, big “Dad” 
Hickson, center, Brannock, right end, and Carvel 
Hildreth, the phenomenal right tackle, whose won- 
derful work in that position had for three seasons 
brought victory to the Gold and Green. 

In the room there were others, not of the squad, 
— “Chip” Craddock, the manager of the football 
team, Miguel Mendoza, a short, brown-faced junior 
from Panama, and Sig, the bulldog mascot of the 
eleven, who wore a Gold and Green collar and barked 
his defiance of all things Hamiltonian. 

Hildreth, a tall, superbly developed young fellow, 
with a handsome though somewhat haughty face, 
was lounging at ease on the davenport, laughing as 
Chip Craddock humorously and vividly described 
the latest sensational escapades of the right tackle — 
the wrecking of Billy Treglor’s dining room on the 
night of the senior banquet, and the subsequent 
exploit, in which Hildreth had won undying noto- 
riety when he ran “Tug” Warrington’s touring car 
at full speed into Parker Chapel, to the devastation 
of the car. 

Carvel Hildreth, who was a senior more by the 
grace of the Faculty than because of his own mental 
attainments, was the only son of Robert Hildreth, 
Ballard ’89, now a successful banker and promoter 


4 


THE LAST DITCH 


in New York City. Accustomed all his life to an 
abundance of spending money, Carvel’s three years 
at college had been a wild riot of the most reck- 
less adventures, usually ending in the smashing of 
everything breakable in sight. 

But most of the property owners thus afflicted 
had come to welcome these incidents, since Hildreth 
would carelessly tell them to send their bills for 
damages to Mr. Robert Hildreth, Bankers’ Building, 
New York, who would settle them at once, which 
was always the case. In view of the fact that the 
enraged proprietors invariably made the bills double 
the damage, the collegian was a popular visitor. 

With a brilliant mind and the ability to lead his 
class with high scholastic honors at Ballard, Hildreth 
never studied, but spent his nights in daring esca- 
pades that startled the college. Despite his father’s 
wealth, he was not overbearing, but profflgate with 
his money and friendship, so that his generosity 
was forever entangling others in Faculty reprimands. 
A loyal, good-natured, and impetuous fellow, he 
was being ruined by having too much money at his 
command. 

“Toss the letter here, Marcus Aurelius Anto- 
ninus," Carvel drawled. “I suppose it contains a 
couple of checks from Dad, to reimburse Billy 
Treglor for his broken china, and to buy Tug a 
new front for his touring car. I had so much fun 
both times that the expense does not bother me 
in the least, especially so long as my father foots 
the bills!" 


HIS FATHER’S LETTER 


5 


Marcus Aurelius Jones, after presenting the letter 
to Hildreth with much the same awed homage as a 
South African would offer gifts to a tribal chief, 
backed slowly from the room, thrilled to the heart 
at actually having been in the very midst of the 
college heroes who would struggle against Hamilton 
the next day for the glory of old Ballard! 

“ ‘Mother and father pay all the bills,’ ” chanted 
Dad Hickson, “ ‘and we have all the fun, with the 
money that we spend in college life!’ ” 

“As I was relating,” resumed Craddock, whose 
harrowing narrative had been interrupted by the 
reverential entrance of Marcus Aurelius, “Hildreth 
scrambled on top of the table to inform the world 
as to the grandeur of the senior class, when the head 
waiter, a new one who did not know how willing 
Billy is to have Carvel smash things so he can send 
Mr. Hildreth a bill for twice the breakage, ventured 
to remonstrate. 

“Then Carvel hurled the chinaware in every 
direction, kicked the cutglass from the table, scat- 
tered the silver about, and caused a general havoc. 
When we seniors dragged him out at last, Treglor 
was sitting alone amid the remains, like Marius 
brooding over the crumbled ruins of Carthage!” 

“Yes,” laughed Cupid Cavanaugh, “but he was 
counting up how big a bill he might send to Carvel’s 
father. The funniest stunt that Hildreth has yet 
shown Ballard was after the banquet, when he sent 
Tug’s car head-on into Parker Chapel to give us a 
realistic demonstration of how our stone-wall defense 


6 


THE LAST DITCH 


will stop the rushes of the Hamilton backfield to- 
morrow. Crash, and the car stopped dead!’* 

While the football fellows laughed at the memory 
of Hildredth’s exploits, the tall right tackle was 
carelessly ripping open the envelope; he knew the 
letter was from his father, as the firm’s name was 
in the upper left-hand corner. As Billy Treglor 
and Tug Warrington, at his request, had sent bills 
to Mr. Hildreth, he felt sure the letter contained a 
check and a lengthy arraignment of his reckless 
college career. 

For a few moments, as he glanced indifferently 
at the writing, the smile remained on his face, as 
though it took him some time to grasp the context 
of the message. Then Hildreth sat staring at the 
sheet, a look of sheer amazement coming to his 
countenance, while his companions wondered what 
alarming news the letter could contain. 

“What ees the mattaire. Carvel?” demanded 
Mendoza, seeing how dazed the senior was. “Ees 
eet that your fathaire has refuse’ to pay for ze 
automobeel and eating place which you haf wreck’? ” 

“No, fellows,” muttered Hildreth, handing the 
letter to Captain Bill Hoke for him to read aloud, 
“but Dad has reached the end of his patience at 
last. I might have known that the smashing of 
Tug’s car was too much, but I just had to show 
how we will stop Hamilton to-morrow. Read it 
out. Bill.” 

Captain Bill Hoke, a big, serious chap, weighed 
down with the gr^t responsibility of leading his 


HIS FATHER’S LETTER 


7 


college eleven, looked troubled as he read the letter 
that had stunned his teammate. 

“Dear Son Carvel: 

There is an end to all things, and you have at last reached 
it with my patience. For three years I have settled bill after 
bill to pay for yotu: utterly senseless pranks, but when you 
take to the malicious destruction of property, as in this last 
stunt, I can stand no more. 

“ It has been my fault, for I should never have allowed you so 
much money at college; perhaps I should have made you work 
your way through, as I did when a student at Ballard. But I 
remembered how I was forced to sacrifice much of that joyous 
college comradeship because my work for an education took my 
spare time, and I wanted you to enjoy what I missed. 

“You have disappointed me sorely. Carvel, for in your college 
course you have not taken a scholastic honor, and your class 
records are miserable. You have chosen riotous companions, 
leading them into the wildest exploits, and have depended on 
me to pay the bills. Because you were my son, and I wanted 
you to enjoy the golden college years that come but once, I have 
been lenient, but you have crushed all my hopes of you. 

“These are the last bills I shall settle for you at Ballard, of 
any kind. Either come to New York and take a minor clerkship 
in the office, or make yoiu- own way at college for the rest of the 
year on your own resources. 

“ If you can make your way at college for the rest of the year, 
and show me that you have the making of a man in you, I will 
help you afterward, or if you come home to start in at the bottom, 
here in my office. Otherwise, you must shift. for yourself, in 
your own shiftless way, 

"Your father, 

“Robert Hildreth, 

Ballard CoUege, ’89.” 

There was a silence. Every fellow in the room 
knew that Carvel had wasted three years at Ballard, 


8 


THE LAST DITCH 


and all felt his father was right, though his deter- 
mination seemed stem. 

“That is straight from the shoulder,” remarked 
Biff Hogarth, “but you have brought it on 
yourself, old man. You have been warned by 
friends, foes, and the Faculty, but you were heed- 
less. Still, you must stay; you can’t leave now, 
with the football season just started. You can 
tend furnaces, or — ” 

“I won’t work!” raged Carvel, with an unreason- 
ing anger against his father seething within him. 
“ I have been used to having all the money I wanted 
to spend, and I can’t stay here and hustle. I’ll 
take him at his word, and accept the position in 
his New York office.” 

Mendoza, the little Panamanian, leaped to his 
feet excitedly. 

“I haf eet!” he shouted. “You go to ze Canal 
Zone, Heeldreth! You get a fine job working on ze 
Beeg Deetch; you safe ze money for nex’ fall; then 
you come back to old Ballard and graduate!” 

He plunged into a fervid description of the Canal, 
and the vivid word pictures that the student from 
Colon drew, in his quaint English, fascinated them, 
for Mendoza, as are all who have seen the stupen- 
dous undertaking, was thoroughly under the spell of 
the glorious achievement. As he talked, they saw 
the tall, graceful palm fronds on the white beach 
at Cristobal, the orderly rows of Isthmian Canal 
Commission houses, the enormous dam and locks 
at Gatun; they heard the rattle and roar of steam 


HIS FATHER’S LETTER 


9 


shovels in Cnlebra Cut, and smelled the powder of 
the dynamite blasts. 

“I see myself digging a ditch!” said Carvel, in . 
contempt. “I might work in an office, but never 
in the torrid sun and pouring rain of the tropics. 
But we won’t worry over this until after the big 
game to-morrow, for come what will, we must beat 
Hamilton!’" 


2 


CHAPTER II 


THE DECISION 

L eaving his teammates to talk excitedly over 
his father’s letter, and to shake their heads 
sorrowfully over his wasted years, Hildreth strode 
from Denning and walked across Campus Square to 
Dwight Hall, the sacred abode of the seniors. On 
the steps of MacCabe, the freshman dormitory, 
were “Pop” Corrigan and “Doc” MacGruder, the 
elongated yell leaders, tying themselves into knots, 
getting entangled with the big megaphones, and 
inciting the collegians to the seventeen different 
kinds of riot and insurrection known as “rooting.” 

“Standing on his own thirty-eight-yard line,” 
shouted MacGruder, as Hildreth passed, “with 
only a minute of play, and neither eleven having 
scored, Hildreth, the Ballard right tackle, dropped 
back for a try at goal. Hickson passed the ball per- 
fectly. Hildreth stood undismayed as the Latham 
backs ripped their way through the line, and a 
moment later the pigskin flew across the bar, win- 
ning for Ballard!” 

It was a newspaper account of the Ballard- 
Latham game, and the collegians went wild at 
hearing it quoted. They clamored for a speech, 
and Hildreth paused under an arc light long enough 
to shout: 


10 


THE DECISION 


11 


“We won’t need a drop-kick to-morrow, fellows! 
Ballard is going to win the game on touchdowns!’’ 

Escaping from the students, while Pop Corrigan 
went through all sorts of g 3 nnnastics to get a cheer 
for Hildreth from the riotous gathering, the right 
tackle made his way to his room, where he could 
still hear two hundred voices insisting to the campus 
that “He’s — all — right! Hildreth! Hildreth! 
Hildreth!” He was thrilled with the knowledge 
that he was an idol among his fellows, a football 
hero, -but the memory of his father’s letter 
rankled. 

Back in ’89, Robert Hildreth had graduated from 
Ballard with the highest class honors; his record 
had been clean in every way, and Ballard was 
proud to number him as one of her sons. The fact 
that he had worked his way through the four years 
made his popularity and power for good all the 
more wonderful, and his friends remembered him 
as resourceful, honest, and loyal to his alma mater. 

In Carvel he had hoped to realize the expectations 
of a proud father. Since the death of the boy’s 
mother he had come more and more to center all his 
hopes and ambitions on his son, giving him the 
finest preparatory-school training, and fitting him 
to make his mark at college and university. Instead 
of appreciating this. Carvel had studied little, had 
gone in zealously for athletics, and had spent his 
time as wastefully as he had squandered his father’s 
money. 

“Grinder” Graham, Hildreth’s roommate, was 


12 


THE LAST DITCH 


studying diligently as his chum entered, for the fact 
that the big game was to come off next day was not 
sufficient reason for him to neglect his class work. 
He looked up from his Horace, and seeing that 
Carvel was in an angry mood he asked, quizzically: 

“Faculty after you again, old man?” 

For answer, Hildreth flung his father’s letter down 
before Graham, and despite his wrath he smiled in 
anticipation of Grinder’s rebuke. The studious, 
bespectacled little senior read it through carefully, 
then regarded him sadly. 

“So you are at the last ditch?” he said slowly. 
“You have sown wild oats for three years, and now 
you must reap the harvest! It is up to you to make 
good on your own ability, and will you be able to 
do it? Will the years of wasted opportunities and 
the memory of reckless escapades help you now. 
Carvel?” 

Hildreth was silent. Usually the mention of his 
college adventures filled him with pride, but in the 
presence of this hard-working, plain-spoken Grinder 
Graham he did not see things in the same light as 
when a group of joyous collegians laughed at his 
sensational exploits. 

“Oh, I don’t know. Grinder,” he said at last, 
“ I have had a good time, but you can’t say that I 
have done anything so terribly wrong. All college 
fellows go in for a lot of larks, you know; I have n’t 
shone much in class work, but you have no right 
to regard me as a criminal just because you are a 
grind.” 


THE DECISION 


13 


“Haven’t I?” demanded the excitable Grinder. 
“You have blasted your father’s hopes of you, 
wrecked your own life, wielded a bad influence in 
college because of your wildness, yet you have done 
no wrong! You have been a wastrel with your 
money; you have led foolish freshmen to follow 
your riotous example; by your good nature and 
fine football you have made yourself a hero and 
an idol, and you misuse this influence! Isn’t it 
a crime to have your record, Hildreth? Haven’t 
you done wrong to flunk out and barely pass from 
year to year, when with your brain you could have 
led the class? And all this, when your father hoped 
in vain for some good report of you!’’ 

Somehow, when put in such clear, forceful 
sentences. Carvel’s three years at Ballard did not 
bring him the satisfaction he had once felt. All 
that he had done, besides the football playing, had 
been to set a bad example for students who followed 
him blindly, causing them to engage in affairs that 
brought them shame and disgraced their college. 

“Think it over,’’ said Graham gently, for he saw 
that his words had hit the mark. “What have you 
ever done for the glory of old Ballard? Have you 
ever made the State Intercollegiate Oratorical 
Contest? Have you ever written for the Ballard 
Monthly? Have you ever done any scholastic work 
to be proud of? In your class affairs, did you ever 
get elected to an office? No, you were an idol when 
you raided the kitchen or hazed the freshmen, but 
your class judged you unfit to lead them through 


14 


THE LAST DITCH 


college! Have you ever done a worthy thing, off 
the gridiron, here at Ballard?” 

“No!” groaned Hildreth, miserably. 

“You are right,” said Grinder with grimness. 
“After each wild act the college said, ‘That is 
Hildreth, ’13!* That is how you reflected glory on 
our class! That is your true college spirit! Can’t 
you see that your father is right, and that now you 
must redeem yourself?” 

“I know it,” answered Hildreth sadly, “but it’s 
all too late. Grinder. I have wasted three years, 
and I am a senior. I have been used to squandering 
my time and money, and I cannot stay here and 
work. I can’t study, for I have never learned how.” 

Graham flung an arm across his shoulders. 

“It’s never too late to win out, old chum!” he 
said earnestly. “Just make a last-ditch fight, and 
win the game! I’ll help you, the Faculty will 
help you, when you tell them you will try to do 
right, and the fellows will stick with you. Will you 
try it?” 

Hildreth hesitated. From the window, in the 
moonlight, he saw the athletic field, with the gaunt 
goal posts and the gridiron, marked for the big 
game; the campus spread out before him, with 
Campus Square, and all the college buildings 
grouped around it — MacCabe, Wilton, Denning, 
and Dwight, the Science Hall, the Gymnasium, and 
white Parker Chapel. He heard the students, led 
by MacGruder and Corrigan, singing softly, 
“Ballard, Ballard, hail, all hail!” The lights 


THE DECISION 


15 


gleamed from the dormitory windows, and there 
sounded the twang of a banjo, mingling with the 
melody of a junior quartette. 

For the first time in his three years at Ballard, 
Carvel Hildreth felt a thrill of true college spirit. 
He saw that his course should have meant more to 
him than nights of fun, wasted opportunities in 
classroom, debating hall, and among his fellows, — 
more than a little football glory. He should have 
been a leader in class affairs, a fine orator, a power 
for good in college. It was old Ballard that he gazed 
on now, and he had disgraced his alma mater! 

“ ril do it. Grinder!” he declared with determina- 
tion. ‘T ’ll go to Prexy to-night and tell him that I 
have been all wrong, and that I’ll reform. And 
I’ll send Dad a telegram, saying that I shall stick 
here and make good!” 

Deep within Hildreth there were the stirrings of a 
sincere desire to make good, to atone for the wasted 
college career and to bring happiness to his father, 
but as yet they were buried beneath his idle, reckless 
nature. There was fine material for true manhood 
in him, but it would take severe discipline to bring 
it out. 

“I’ll finish the year at Ballard and show Dad!” 
he cried, thrilled with his own confidence. “Come 
down to the telegraph office. Grinder, and I ’ll wire 
him my decision at once!” 

“Remember,” cautioned Grinder, as they left 
the room, “it won’t be as easy as you imagine, 
Carvel, for old habits will hinder you; there will 


16 


THE LAST DITCH 


come times when the old, reckless spirit will seize 
you, when you will weary of books and of hustling 
and are wild to cut loose. You will miss the money, 
the freedom you have had. It is your one chance, 
but there is a fight ahead of you.’* 

“Oh, I’ll make good,” promised Hildreth buoy- 
antly. “You just watch me play the game against 
Hamilton to-morrow on the line of scrimmage, and 
you will know how I am going to buck this other 
line.” 

Ten minutes later, with the serious Grinder 
shaking his head dubiously over the dramatic 
wording of the message. Carvel Hildreth was sending 
a telegram to his father in New York. It was full 
of promise and determination, and was destined to 
make the financier feel a new pride in his son. 

It read: “I am at the last ditch — but will win 
out here!” 


CHAPTER III 


THE YELLOW STREAK 

“TTIT low and hard, fellows!” 

Big Bill Hoke, captain and fullback of 
the Ballard College eleven, smote the right tackle 
on his steaming back and ran to his position on the 
defense, as the chaotic mass of bodies untangled 
and with automatic speed shaped itself into opposing 
lines of scrimmage and of backfields. 

Carvel Hildreth, fighting the game of his life, 
moved his stiffening lips in response to the panting 
captain’s cry, but his face was white and set beneath 
its crust of blood and dirt as he crouched low on the 
line and waited tensely for the next catapult from 
the Hamilton backfield. 

In the stands a silence reigned; hushed alike were 
the riotous cheers of the Hamilton contingent and 
the clamorous confusion led by the tall Corrigan 
and MacGruder. The great crowd was on its feet, 
swaying, intense, but still save for the gasps that 
came involuntarily when the two teams crashed 
together, or when the linesmen waved Hamilton 
toward the Gold and Green goal line. Under- 
graduates and alumni of old Ballard, maddened by 
the steady onrush of the enemy, stood up and waited 
for the inevitable defeat, unless time alone saved 
them. 


17 


18 


THE LAST DITCH 


Suddenly Doc MacGruder raised his big mega- 
phone and boomed out to the desperate Ballard 
fighters: 

“Hold ’em two more minutes, fellows, and 
Ballard wins!” 

This was the great day, the afternoon of the big 
game! For this a score of former Ballard football 
stars had sacrificed their business affairs, giving 
cheerfully of time and services to coach the eleven. 
For weeks, with a loyal, hard-fighting scrub, the 
first-team fellows had endured the weary scrimmages, 
the strict training, the battering on the field in 
practice; everything was centered on this first big 
game of the season, this hour of play against the 
Red and Blue rival. 

After the time keeper’s whistle blew again, 
announcing the end of it all, there would come relief 
and rest, and for Ballard, if her line held a few 
more seconds, it would be rest in the memory of a 
glorious victory! 

Five hundred joyous, noisy rooters had accom- 
panied the Hamilton eleven, confident in the speed 
and strength of the big Red and Blue warriors. 
Flushed with the remembrance of last year’s score, 
when Ballard had been downed for the first time 
in the history of their athletic relations, Hamilton 
had played a vicious game from the kick-off, keeping 
Captain Hoke’s team constantly on the defensive. 

Ballard, as silent and grim as the stands, from 
which volumes of sound had broken earlier to roll 
across the field, was making a last-ditch fight against 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


19 


the terrific onslaught of the enemy. In the first 
half, before the superior weight of Hamilton’s back- 
field had crushed and splintered the Gold and Green 
line, Ballard had scored a touchdown on a tackle- 
back play, with Hildreth breaking loose for a sen- 
sational thirty-yard run to the line, and kicking 
the goal afterward. 

After that, the cruel concentration of weight 
and power in the backfield of the enemy, shot into 
line plimges, had battered Hoke’s team, and in the 
last few minutes of play the Red and Blue made 
first down after first down, marching steadily, by 
bucks and tandem plays, straight for the Ballard 
goal line. They were determined to beat their way 
across, and that meant victory, for their quarter 
had kicked a field goal from placement in the first 
half. 

“Stick, old man!’’ breathed Biff Hogarth, next 
to Hildreth in the line. 

“I’ll try,” Hildreth ^oaned, “but my side is 
gashed where some one kicked me. Biff!” 

After Hildreth’s wonderful run, the Red and 
Blue quarterback had driven line plunges, tandems, 
and cross-bucks, one after another, straight at the 
star right tackle, determined to wear him out and 
have a substitute sent in to take his place. Carvel 
was a finely built chap, but even in the best of 
condition his splendid frame must weaken under 
the constant hammering of the bone-breaking 
rushes, or worse, his fighting spirit might be 
broken! 


20 


THE LAST DITCH 


In a sort of trance, as the Hamilton backs charged 
at him, he remembered the night when he ran Tug 
Warrington’s car headlong into Parker Chapel, to 
show his chums how the Ballard line would stop 
the Red and Blue rushes; somehow, he wished the 
big touring car might replace these backs that tore 
at him — he did not believe the impact would be so 
dizzying then. 

“One more rush! One more rush!” he caught him- 
self repeating, and he felt a sensation of nervous 
dread as he awaited the terrific collision that must 
grind him between the Hamilton play and his own 
secondary defense. This steady driving and smash- 
ing at him had broken him in body and muscle, but 
his spirit was still strong as he grinned desperately 
at the opposing left tackle. 

It was the last ditch! Could the hard-fighting 
Ballard eleven stem the vicious rush of the enemy 
for only a few seconds, that night the college would 
celebrate the victory, and they would be heroes; 
one instant of weakening, and the powerful Hamilton 
backs would gain enough momentum to drive 
through the defense and hurl across the goal line, 
ten yards away. 

One mighty cheer of encouragement burst from 
the crowd, a mingled yell of triumph from the 
Hamilton cohorts and of desperate defiance from 
Ballard; it rolled out in a mighty sweep, then stilled. 
Nothing was heard but the hoarse panting of the 
players, the call of the quarter’s signals, and Sig’s 
snappy bark as he growled at the enemy. 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


21 


The instant had come when physical strength 
deserted the Ballard line; on their sheer fighting 
spirit alone were they waging the conflict, and 
Hildreth had been chosen as the brunt of successive 
rushes, the point of continued attack, to be worn 
down imtil he broke and a rush could surge over 
him. Mechanically he had flung himself low and 
hard to meet the plunges, for his body was weak 
and helpless, and now the opposing tackle smiled 
and set his cleats in the sod as he heard the signal 
for a cross-buck against the tired Hildreth. 

“ Signal ! ” panted the Hamilton quarter. “ Forma- 
tion left; 23-66-32-9!” 

“Steady, old man!” breathed Biff Hogarth, dig- 
ging his elbow into his teammate’s side for encourage- 
ment. ‘ ‘ It means youl ’ ’ 

Old Ballard men in the stand knew that the last 
play would crash into Hildreth; the students knew 
it, and hoped. A word of encouragement came 
pantingly from Captain Bill Hoke, and Hildreth 
Wght hard to keep his reeling senses. He was 
afraid of the blinding crash, and the grinding shock, 
that must follow. He wanted to yell frantically 
for the coaches to drag him out, before the last 
rush stretched him, bloody and broken of bone, 
on the field! 

Yet he gritted his teeth and stuck pluckily, 
determined to stop that last rush, or die. Suddenly 
he felt Hogarth’s sharp elbow jab against his side. 
He saw the horror on his teammate’s face as he under- 
stood what he had done, and all at once he grew 


22 


THE LAST DITCH 


blind and faint with pain. Then, to the conster- 
nation of all who saw, he yielded to an apparently 
palpable feeling of terror, and drew back! 

Then came the crash! On Hildreth alone had 
depended the result of the big game. Had he flung 
himself, heedless of death and disaster, against the 
last rush, the Ballard backfield would have driven 
in behind him, the play would have been checked 
in a few feet, and the time keeper’s whistle, that 
sounded at that moment, would have announced a 
victory for the Gold and Green. 

But that brief instant of weakening on the part 
of the right tackle had given the powerful Hamilton 
tandem the time to gain speed, and over his prostrate 
body it plowed, ripping the Ballard defense like a 
plowshare, and leaving a furrow of turned bodies 
in its wake as it hurtled across the goal line — to 
victory! 

Sick and weak, Hildreth found himself beside 
Biff Hogarth, who had been left limp and senseless 
on the turf after that fatal rush. For a moment 
he was unable to grasp the terrible significance of 
it all; then he remembered, and staggered to his 
feet in time to see the Hamilton crowds stream on 
the field and do a wild snake dance, bearing the 
victorious eleven off in triumph. 

The Ballard players trailed dejectedly from the 
field; tears rolled down Captain Bill Hoke’s face, 
and Hickson was muttering incoherently in his 
disappointed rage. Three students carried the 
unconscious Hogarth to his room, and last of all. 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


23 


with his head held low with the shame of it all as 
he passed through the crowd of ominously silent 
Ballard collegians, came Carvel Hildreth. 

“The yellow streak!” he heard some one whisper. 
“Think of it — played on the eleven three seasons, 
and it never showed until to-day!” 

Passing through the gate of Alumni Field, Hildreth 
met his roommate. Grinder Graham. For an 
instant Graham’s eyes rested on the white-faced, 
blood-stained right tackle, then, as though he had 
never seen Carvel, he turned away! Hildreth had 
opened his mouth to speak, but he closed his lips 
again and plunged madly into the surging crowd. 

As he went through Campus Square on his way 
to Dwight, Hildreth was forced to go by a gathering 
of angry and gloomy Ballard fellows, who were 
talking of the game and of his cowardice. He tried 
to face them bravely, but the silence that ensued 
was more than he could stand, and he hurried on, 
hearing the murmurs and hisses that broke out. He 
understood how much the collegians despised him; 
he saw the future, shunned as he would be by all; 
he, who a short time before had been the football 
idol of Ballard! 

At Dwight he found the one hope of his vindication 
gone, for Hogarth, suffering from concussion of the 
brain, had been hurried to a city hospital, and he 
had not regained consciousness before he left the 
campus. Biff alone could clear him of the unjust 
suspicion of cowardice, but it would be weeks before 
the right guard returned, if ever, and he felt that 


24 


THE LAST DITCH 


he could not endure the odium and the ostracism 
that long. 

In the dormitory he encountered the same chilling 
silence. His own classmates, they who had been his 
ardent admirers through the three years of his 
brilliant football career, now scorned him as he 
returned from the game he had lost. The following 
of worshipful freshmen, who had idolized him, had 
faded away, and none of them would speak to him. 
Baynard, the editor-in-chief of the Monthly, gazed 
at him with utter contempt in his eyes, and Hildreth 
knew that the next issue would contain a graphic 
and crushing account of his cowardice. 

In his room he found Grinder Graham, who had 
made an athletic idol of him, placing him on a 
pedestal despite the lectures he gave Hildreth on his 
reckless career. When they had been freshmen 
together Hildreth had shielded the weaker boy from 
the tortures of the sophomores, and the grind had 
been grateful. Now he was hurriedly ripping pen- 
nants and pictures from the walls, and hurling his 
possessions into a trunk. 

Why, old man!” Carvel forgot his misery at the 
sight. “You are not leaving college? What ’s up? ” 

“What’s up?” shrilled the irate Grinder. “Do 
you think I’ll room with a coward? No! I can’t 
find a room in Dwight, so I ’ll go over to Denning. 
Don’t you think we all know? Why, every one 
saw you dodge back when that last rush came at 
you, when you might have checked it and saved the 
game! You lost what the others fought so hard to 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


25 


win, you, who sent a telegram to your father about 
winning out at the last ditch! Bah!’* 

Without a word, not reminding Graham that it 
had been his nm that had made the touchdown for 
Ballard, the right tackle left the room and went 
slowly over to the shower baths in the gymnasium 
basement. It was a trying ordeal, to enter where 
beneath the grateful warmth of the showers the 
players were easing their bruised and battered 
bodies. As he went in through the clouds of steam 
there was a cessation of the confused talk, and then 
— a single, sharp hiss! 

“None of that, fellows!” cried Hoke. “I’ll 
thrash the next one who does it!” 

Hildreth, determined to make an explanation, 
faced them all. 

“Bill, I — ” he faltered, then stopped, realizing 
how futile any words would be then, in that bitter 
hour of defeat. 

“Don’t make excuses,” said Hoke coldly. “You 
played the coward and lost for Ballard. Had you 
met that last rush like a man — oh, what’s the use!” 

Without another effort to clear himself of the 
unjust charge that but one fellow could help him 
refute, and he, Hogarth, in the hospital. Carvel tore 
off his sweaty togs and hurled them away. The 
fellows made room for him under the showers by 
leaving when he came near, but he set his teeth and 
was silent. 

It would have been hard enough for him to bear 
had he been guilty of the accusation, but when he 


3 


26 


THE LAST DITCH 


knew he had not shown the yellow streak it was 
unbearable. If only Hogarth had not been knocked 
out, he might hope for vindication, but now he had 
to face the condemnation of the college and the 
scorn of his friends, and he was utterly helpless. 

After supper Hildreth, bitterly determined to 
stay and fight it out until spring, when he would 
graduate, walked out in Campus Square. The lights 
gleamed from the dormitories, and he heard the 
voices of the still angrily excited students. Every- 
where his name was spoken, and his act, that had 
dragged the Gold and Green in the dust of defeat, 
was bitterly arraigned. 

As he stood there, remembering that with it all 
he had to work his way, the football fellows passed 
him; Bill Hoke, who had been his best friend; Cupid 
Cavanaugh, who, he had thought, would stand 
by him through thick and thin; the trainer, who 
had looked on Hildreth as on an idol; all the fellows 
with whom he had fought for the glory of old 
Ballard, now passed him by and looked the other 
way! None had a thought for the games he had 
won by sheer prowess, giving his best for the team; 
none recalled the times when his defensive work 
had held an enemy scoreless, and they did not 
consider that he might not, after all, have been a 
coward. They knew only that his failure to meet 
that fatal last rush had lost Ballard the big game. 

Carvel Hildreth, so short a time before the most 
popular fellow in Ballard College, idolized as a 
football star and liked for himself, now stood alone 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


27 


and discredited in Campus Squaie, unnoticed by 
those whom he had thought were his loyal friends, 
and spumed by all. And this, just as he had 
resolved to put the past away and make good, for 
the sake of his father! 

“For three seasons I have been bruised and 
battered on the field,” he muttered savagely. “I 
have trained and practiced. I have fought till I 
was nearly worn out, and now, when I fail through 
no fault of mine, when I was so near dead that I 
ought to have been out long before, I am ostracized ! ” 

And yet, when a squad has trained and prepared 
for the big game, when for a week the college has 
been a turmoil of enthusiasm and excitement, when 
the team fights and suffers torment to hold a hard- 
earned victory in its grasp until the last second, with 
the enemy battering away at it, and then, when 
the player upon whom all depends, instead of 
hurling himself at the play when the eleven is at the 
last ditch, is to all appearances a coward, and draws 
back, the wave of feeling is natural. Had Hildreth 
stuck grimly for a few weeks, the sentiment against 
him would have died away, and he would have had 
a chance to speak. 

As he made his way back to his room, deserted 
now by Graham, the bitter loneliness seemed too 
great to be endured. For the first time since the 
game he recalled his father’s letter, and the brave 
telegram he had sent to New York. Everything 
had happened at the critical hour; his father had 
tired of his useless career, and now, just when he 


28 


THE LAST DITCH 


wanted to stay and redeem himself, he must face 
the silent scorn of the college. 

He read his father's letter over again. It offered 
him his choice; he might stay at college and work 
his own way until Commencement, or come to New 
York and take a lowly position in the office. He 
could read between the lines that his father would 
rather have him decide to stay at Ballard, but that 
was impossible, for he could not, now. Circum- 
stances were fast making him what he had not been 
on the gridiron, a coward. 

“I’ll go to New York and work,” he said. “I 
can’t stay here. I can’t stand it all. If only 
Hogarth had not been hurt!” 

Then he thought of the brave message he had 
sent his father: “I am at the last ditch — but will 
win out here.” He had not known, when he sent 
it, that he could be beaten back farther than he was, 
but so it was. He was not to be given a chance to 
stay and make good, after the game had been lost 
by him, unless he was morally courageous. 

As yet there was no thought of his father’s vain 
hopes of him; he did not understand that Mr. 
Hildreth had made his stem decision in the thought 
that it might sober Carvel to a sense of his wasted 
career, and that being thrown on his mettle might 
make a man of him. Perhaps, had not the incident 
of the football field occurred, he might have stayed 
and made good, but now the fight before him was 
too great, and he lacked the courage to stay. 

As he entered his room he found Sig, the football 


THE YELLOW STREAK 


29 


mascot, on the bed. He extended his hand to pet 
the great head of the bulldog, for Sig had been a 
self-appointed guardian of the right tackle. The 
animal looked up at the collegian, friendship in his 
great brown eyes, and wagged his stumpy tail 
furiously. 

Then Hildreth flung himself on the bed, face 
downward, clenching his hands in an agony of 
anguish. 

*T ’ll go! I ’ll go! ” he burst forth wildly. “ When 
only a dog will stand by me, I can’t stay and 
endure the shame of my friends’ ridicule and 
hatred!” 


CHAPTER IV 
disowned! 

M r. ROBERT HILDRETH sat at his desk near 
the window of his office in the Bankers’ 
Building, New York, on State Street, watching the 
ocean liners move up and down North River. In 
his hand he held the day’s newspaper, and he was 
enjoying a moment of anticipation before he turned 
to the sporting page to read the account of the 
Ballard-Hamilton football game. 

As he was a graduate of Ballard College, and in 
his day had been a great athlete, he was eager to 
have Carvel distinguish himself in football; in fact, 
in view of Hildreth’s reckless college career, it was 
the only source of pride that the financier enjoyed 
in him. Carvel had, indeed, made a wonderful 
record for himself on the gridiron. 

“He has made a sorry mess of his studies,” Mr. 
Hildreth reflected, with a look of keen regret on 
his face, “and he has sorely tried my patience, 
but his telegram shows he has the right material in 
him, and so long as he can play the game, I have 
hopes of him. That is what fitted me for the battle 
of life, and you won’t find a fellow dodging anything 
hard after he has tackled runners for three seasons. 

“I am glad he has the courage to stick, for had 
he given up and come to New York I should have 
30 


DISOWNED! 


31 


lost all hope in him; he must make good where he 
has wasted his years." 

On his desk was Carvel’s telegram: “Am at the 
last ditch — but will win out here." He gazed at 
it for a while with a glad look in his eyes, then he 
turned to his paper. His eyes traveled swiftly up 
and down the columns, and at last rested on the 
glaring caption: 

“Ballard’s Right Tackle Loses Game! Shows 
Yellow Streak!" 

With no muscle of his impassive face showing the 
cruel disappointment in his heart, the financier 
read of how Hildreth, the famous right tackle for 
the Ballard eleven, had palpably lost his nerve when 
the last rush of the big game crashed at him, and 
had drawn back, his cowardice losing a bitter con- 
test that the Gold and Green had otherwise won. 
There was no mention in the paper of how Carvel’s 
chums and teammates had turned in scorn from 
the fallen idol, but Mr. Hildreth understood. 

Unheeded, the paper slipped from his grasp and 
fell to the floor, as he sat, staring with unseeing eyes. 
Even this hope of his son was to be unrealized now; 
he had played the coward in a football game! For 
a while Mr. Hildreth was crushed; then he remem- 
bered the day he had seen Carvel play, and he 
pictured the long, well-built body shooting unflinch- 
ingly at a mass play that stretched him senseless 
on the field. 

“I don’t believe it!" he said loyally. “There 
was something wrong with him, and he ought to 


32 


THE LAST DITCH 


have been pulled out of the scrimmage. No matter 
what he has done or failed to do at college, he is not 
a coward. I shall wait till I hear from him before 
I pass judgment. It’s a shame, too, just as he 
decided to stay at college and redeem himself!” 

A ubiquitous office boy thrust his red head in 
at the door. 

“A young fellow to see you, sir,” he chirped. 
“Says his name is Hildreth.” 

“Carvel!” exclaimed the banker, as his son 
pushed past the office boy and closed the door 
behind him. “What does this mean? Why are 
you not at college, and what have you to say about 
this?” 

He held the paper before Carvel’s eyes, but the 
collegian pushed it away with a gesture of weariness. 

“I know it all. Dad!” he returned. “It was fine 
copy for the newspapers, but death to me. I could 
not stand the misery of being left alone, shunned 
by all I had believed my friends. I did vow to 
stay and graduate in June, but I just had to leave. 
I have decided to take that position in your office.” 

“You will go back to Ballard on the next train!” 
announced Mr. Hildreth grimly. “No son of mine 
shall show the white feather. I know that you are 
not a coward. Carvel, and that there is something 
back of all this newspaper rot. Tell me just how 
it all happened.” 

“I don’t quite know,” confessed the collegian, 
“but I give you my word of honor that I was not a 
coward. Hamilton drove play after play at me. 


DISOWNED! 


33 


till I was physically unfit to be in the game. Was it 
cowardice to stay in the scrimmage when I could 
hardly move, and my body was one big ache, because 
7. knew the coaches had no substitute who could 
stand the strain, if I failed?” 

“No!” exclaimed the banker. “Then what?” 

“My side was cut by a cleated shoe,” said Carvel 
quietly, “and just as that last rush started. Biff 
Hogarth, our right guard, dug his elbow into the 
sore place, with the good intention of encouraging 
me, for he had forgotten I was hurt. The intense 
pain made me sick and blind for the moment, and 
I forgot the rush, the game, everything! Then it 
came, too late for me to throw myself at it, as I 
would have done, even though it meant death. 
That is the truth, but you can understand how it 
would do to offer it to a mass of defeated, infuri- 
ated students.” 

“But this Hogarth!” urged Mr. Hildreth. “Get 
him to tell of how he dug you in the side ! Show that 
you were hurt! Surely he will remember your 
telling him of the injury.” 

“Hogarth is in the hospital with concussion of 
the brain,” answered the right tackle sadly. “It 
will be weeks before he returns to college, and 
maybe he will not come back at all. I cannot 
prove that I was not a craven, and I cannot stay at 
Ballard; I’ll work here with you.” 

“ I believe what you have said,” replied the banker 
earnestly. “You are not a coward, I am sure of it. 
I have been to college, and I know how utterly 


34 


THE LAST DITCH 


unreasonable a student body can be when they 
taste defeat. But it will all blow away in time, and 
you will be vindicated. I am sorry that you yielded 
and came away, but go back now and fight it out. 
Get into the game, and redeem yourself in their 
eyes. Then you will be heard in this affair.” 

He placed his hand on the athlete’s shoulder, and 
was about to add something, when Carvel looked 
up with troubled gaze. 

“I can’t go back there. Dad,” he said slowly, “I 
just can’t! It might come all right, and it might 
not, but I cannot stand the utter misery of it all. 
Every one, from dormitory sweep to the coaches, 
from senior to freshman, regards me with the 
contempt that I do not deserve. Let me stay 
here, and — ” 

The office boy interrupted to give Mr. Hffdreth 
a card. 

“Tell him to wait in the outer office,” he directed. 
“I may have some work for him at once.” 

Mr. Hildreth faced his son. He knew that this 
football game had precipitated a crisis in Carvel’s 
careless life, and that if he wanted to save him from 
being a coward, when he did not deserve the odium, 
he must act with decision. He knew that his son 
had spoken the truth when he explained his strange 
action at the football game; he had been brave 
to stay in the scrimmage when he was hurt, and he 
had not been able to control his body when the 
gashed side was jabbed, paining him cruelly. 

So far he had been courageous, but should he 


DISOWNED! 


35 


now run away from the storm of criticism and 
condemnation that he must face he would be a 
moral coward, and from that it would be but a step 
to an abject physical craven. Carvel must go 
back and fight it out alone, or be a coward the rest 
of his life. Mr. Hildreth’s former decision was 
annulled by this crisis. 

“Carvel,” he said at last, “when your mother 
died, I naturally centered on you all the hopes and 
ambitions of my lonely life. I wanted to make it 
easy for you at college, because I had worked my 
way there, and had been forced to miss many phases 
of college life, so I allowed you all the money you 
asked for. I made a mistake, for, knowing how 
my hardships laid the foundation of success, I ought 
to have helped you by letting you earn your edu- 
cation. 

“ It has been a joy to have you at Ballard, where 
I graduated. You will never quite understand how 
keenly bitter has been my sorrow at the way you 
have wasted your college years, and won an unen- 
viable name where I hoped you would reflect glory 
upon it. I wanted you to play football, for I regard 
it as a great training for life, and your work in it 
has made me proud. 

“In this game you have stood the physical test 
nobly, for because there was none to take your 
place so well, you fought on where others would 
have left the field; you were unable to control your 
body for a moment, when the pain was too intense. 
However, for the present you cannot explain that 


36 


THE" LAST DITCH 


at college. You are really a hero, though shunned 
and scorned, and in time it will ail clear up. Stay 
and fight, as you did in that game!” 

“But,” protested Carvel, “I — ” 

“Listen to me!” thundered his father. “Go 
back and play football! You may not get a chance 
to play on the ’Varsity soon, but join the scrubs 
and show them that you are fighting. You have 
got to act from the students’ viewpoint until Hogarth 
returns. The time will come when the team will 
need you; then go into the game to win. After 
tiiat, they will believe you in this matter.” 

But Carvel hesitated. The memory of his intense 
loneliness and the bitter criticism of the college 
was still too vivid for him to forget. He could 
not go back to Ballard, to the cruel ostracism. 

“As for that other affair,” said the banker, “well, 
we’ll just forget the past. In your telegram you 
showed me that you have the right spirit, and as 
you need me, I ’ll stand by you now. I ’ll pay your 
expenses the rest of the year and give you a moderate 
allowance until you graduate. Can’t you see. 
Carvel, that for your sake, and mine, you must 
go back?” 

Carvel was picturing in his mind the events of 
the day when the big game had been played and 
lost. He saw himself, disconsolate and miserable, 
the target for contemptuous glances and scathing 
remarks. He was avoided by all; no one would 
speak to him, or answer his questions. He thought 
of his room in Dwight, once the rendezvous of Bill 


DISOWNED! 


37 


Hoke, Cavanaugh, Hogarth, Hickson, and all of 
the jolly old crowd, now deserted by even Grinder 
Graham, who looked on Carvel as a traitor to 
Ballard. It was the middle of September, and he 
must stand the undeserved odium, and the lonely 
life, imtil June. 

“I can’t go back!” he protested vehemently. 
‘‘I should rather stay here and work. Dad! Give 
me a position of any kind, and I ’ll make good, but 
don’t ask me to go back there! ” 

“You shall go!” Mr. Hildreth seized him tensely. 
“Do you understand, you shall! If you do not. 
Carvel, I vow that I will disown you, and let you 
live your own life. No son of mine shall play the 
coward! Why, you are a craven, you are giving 
them the right to call you one. If you nm away 
now, you will never be believed.” 

Carvel gazed at his father in wonder, scarcely 
able to believe him in earnest. Was this the father 
who had sent him money to live at ease at college, 
who had settled bills for his escapades? He could 
not understand that this was a crisis in his life, and 
that Mr. Hildreth saw the need of urgent measures 
to save him. 

“You — you will disown me?” he stammered. 
“Dad, you can’t mean that!” 

“Will you go back?” Mr. Hildreth’s voice was 
unwavering. 

“Dad,” Carvel burst out, “I cannot! Disown 
me if you will; I ’ll go out in the world and show you 
that I can succeed. I’ll make good somewhere!” 


38 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Carvel,” said his father sadly, “no matter how 
well you succeed, it won’t give me any joy unless 
you go back to Ballard and make good there first. 
All your success in life won’t be worth a snap if its 
foundation is this act of moral cowardice, and you 
know it. I shall gladly stand by you and help you 
in every way I can; I shall forgive the past, and 
pay your expenses, if you will go back. Will you?” 

“No,” faltered the collegian, determined; “I 
should rather face anything than the scornful silence 
there!” 

“This is final?” asked Mr. Hildreth in a low voice. 
“You won’t return, after I have put aside the three 
wasted years?” 

“ Yes, it is final 1 ” With a peculiar sort of courage. 
Carvel Hildreth faced anything rather than go back 
to Ballard, to the awful condemnation and loneliness. 
He would suffer his father’s disavowal of him, even 
endure starvation. 

“You coward!” His father pointed to the door. 
“Go! You are no longer a son of mine! Make 
your own way in the world, for I shall not know 
you. Now you must choose; when you return to 
college, I shall recognize you. Make your decision 
rightly, or go out of my life!” 

There could be no doubt as to his terrible earnest- 
ness, and Carvel quailed for a moment under the 
wrath he faced. There was no relenting in the 
impassive countenance, and the finger still indicated 
the door. 

Dazed, but determined. Carvel moved away. He 


DISOWNED! 


39 


turned once, but the finger stretched out unwaver- 
ingly, and he went on. He closed the door behind 
him and strode through the outer office, in his blind 
rage not seeing the waiting young man who sat 
there, and who looked at him in wonder. 

He could not see, or know, that after his departure 
his father had pressed a button notifying the stenog- 
rapher in the outer office to send in the young man, 
and that he had sunk into a chair and buried his face 
in his arms, crushed by the sorrow and the disgrace 
of it all, by the shameful cowardice of his son. 


CHAPTER V 

A QUICK DECISION 

P LUNGING blindly in his rage from the 
Bankers’ Building, Carvel Hildreth was soon 
mingling with the crowd of humanity that surged 
along State Street. He had no destination in mind; 
he did not know where he was going; but he was 
filled with a wild, frenzied desire to keep moving, 
before the anger that boiled within him should burst 
its bounds. In continuous motion there seemed a 
certain relief, and unaware of his action, he boarded 
one of the horse cars that bowled past him at that 
moment. 

Mechanically he paid the conductor, and, not 
heeding the curious glances of the passengers, sat 
down. For a while he saw nothing, but as his anger 
began to cool he looked at the great piers along 
North River, where the big, black hulks of the Trans- 
Atlantic liners loomed up, and he read the signs 
above the pier entrances. Suddenly he saw — 
“Pier 52 — The Panama Railroad Company — 
Weekly Sailings to the Canal Zone.” 

Then he remembered Miguel Mendoza, the 
Panamanian who was a junior at Ballard College 
and who had pictured so glowingly the digging of 
the Big Ditch; he had suggested to Hildreth that he 
go to the scenes of the great enterprise and secure 
work, saving until the next fall for his last year 


40 


A QUICK DECISION 


41 


at college. The idea impressed the collegian now, 
thrown on his own resources in the world, and he 
gazed at the pier thoughtfully. 

What Hildreth did not know was that the scope 
of the work had changed greatly since Mendoza 
left Panama three years before, when the Canal 
Zone had been a Mecca for the unemployed; now the 
Isthmian Canal Commission was steadily reducing 
the working force as the Canal neared completion, 
and when finished but one thousand men would 
remain where thirty-five thousand had labored for 
seven years. 

“ I ’ll do it!” he exclaimed aloud, to the surprise of 
a dozing drayman who sat at his side. He jumped 
from the low running board of the car, and a moment 
later was making his way toward the pier; it was then 
nearly three o’clock, and a notice informed him that 
the Cristobal would sail promptly on the hour. As 
he rushed out toward the gangway, he collided with 
a well-built fellow who looked at him for a moment, 
then, to Carvel’s amazement, held out his hand with 
a smile. 

“I beg your pardon,” he said, “but isn’t this 
Hildreth, the chap who was a terror at right tackle 
on the Ballard eleven last season?” 

‘T am Hildreth,” admitted the collegian in 
wonder, “but you have the whip hand of me, though 
it seems that I have seen you somewhere — ” 

“Bayliss is my name,” laughed the other, “Bob 
Bayliss, of Hamilton; I was a freshman there year 
before last, and ran on the track team in the State 


4 


42 


THE LAST DITCH 


Inter-collegiate meet held at Alton. The following 
June I left college and went to the Canal Zone, 
where I am a time keeper in the Culebra Cut; I 
am just about to sail, as my six weeks’ vacation 
is over, and I am encroaching on the ten days of 
grace the I. C. C. employees are allowed.” 

“You are the Bayliss who broke the state record 
in the quarter-mile!” marveled Hildreth. Then 
a sudden terror seized him, for this was an 
old Hamilton student and he must have read of 
Hildreth’s losing the football game through what 
the newspapers called his yellow streak. But his 
companion’s next words reassured him. 

“By the way, Hildreth, how did my alma mater 
make out in the game? I was in such a big rush to 
get to New York and make my ship that I did n’t 
get hold of a sporting page. Say, aren’t you sup- 
posed to be at college this fall?” 

“Hamilton won the game by a score of ten to 
seven,” answered Carvel, “and I was at Ballard; 
in fact, I played in the game against your old chums, 
but I decided that it was better to take my departure, 
for reasons best known to — ” 

“ Not a word ! ” grinned the Hamilton fellow. “A 
little run-in with the august Faculty — I understand. 
But say, old man, it is n’t any of my affair, but are 
you bound for the Canal Zone? If we are to be 
shipmates, let ’s try to book our passages for the same 
stateroom.” 

Hildreth hesitated. He had fifty dollars in his 
possession that had not been wasted in riotous 


A QUICK DECISION 


43 


living at Ballard, and here was a good-natured fellow 
who knew the Canal Zone, and would help him in 
every way possible. Why not book his passage for 
Panama, get work on the Canal, and show his, father 
that he could make his own way in the world, without 
assistance from the banker’s wealth? 

The big bow of the Cristobal loomed up, the iron 
plates red-rusted, with here and there a bit of sea- 
weed, yellow and dried, clinging to the anchor 
chains. The huge derricks on the forward main 
deck were swinging the cargo aboard, with a rattle 
of winches and windlass and the “Heave, ho!” of 
the sailors, swart Spaniards with red turbans, 
Jamaicans, and giant Barbadoes negroes. The 
sight seemed to bring a picture of the tropics, and 
Hildreth was thrilled. 

The long pier was filled with a shifting throng of 
passengers, friends, officials, and roustabouts; porters 
were hurrying aboard with the smaller luggage, 
and there was all the excitement and confusion 
attendant on the sailing of a big liner. To one side, 
seated on their filthy baggage, were three Arabs, a 
merchant from Honduras and his wife and child, a 
like number of Hindus, their headdresses wrapped 
tightly, and several chattering Chinese. 

“I’ll be honest with you, Bayliss,” answered the 
collegian. “I had to leave college, and my father 
cast me off. I am on my own resources, and I 
have only fifty dollars. Answer me two things: 
What is the lowest fare to Panama, and can I get 
work in the Canal Zone if I go there?” 


44 


THE LAST DITCH 


“The steerage fare to Cristobal is thirty dollars,” 
answered Bayliss, “and you will have plenty of 
room, as this ship accommodates ninety third class, 
and on the down voyage there are seldom more than 
twenty. My father is an official in the Pacific 
division of the administration, and I can promise 
you some kind of work.” 

“Then I am with you!” Hildreth extended his 
hand. “After we get better acquainted, Bayliss, 
I will tell you why I left college. Come with me 
now to get my passage.” 

He knew his companion believed he had left 
Ballard as a result of some college prank, and he 
was content to let Bayliss think so for the present, 
as his life was bitter enough without losing this new 
friend. Together they sought the purser’s office, 
which was aft on the main deck, and thirty dollars 
of Hildreth’s slender resources went for a steerage 
passage to Cristobal, the American town on the 
Atlantic side of the Isthmus. 

“I’ll be first class,” said Bayliss, “but I’ll drop 
down to your quarters every night, after it gets cool, 
and we can talk. When you have worked on the 
Canal six months you can get free steerage passage 
to the States, and after a year you get a six weeks’ 
vacation with pay, and first-class passage both 
ways; if a man contracts a chronic disease as a 
result of his work, he gets sent back to the States 
free, with a year’s pay.” 

They walked up to the promenade deck, as the 
steerage restrictions required by Hildreth’s ticket 


A QUICK DECISION 


45 


did not take effect until sailing time. Standing at 
the rail, they watched the crowds coming up the 
gangway, the farewells on the long pier, and the 
work of the picturesque sailors as they heaved at 
the ropes. Suddenly the Ballard collegian gasped 
in surprise as a gray-haired, dignified gentleman of 
middle age, accompanied by a young girl, appeared 
at the foot of the gangway, where an obsequious 
porter took their suitcases. 

“Why, it’s Mr. Barton, and Neva!” he exclaimed, 
to the surprise of Bayliss. “They can’t be going to 
Panama, too! I must not let them see me on board 
ship!’’ 

But it was too late, and before the startled Bayliss 
could wonder why his friend must not be seen by 
this Mr. Barton and his daughter, the girl, coming up 
the gangway to the promenade deck, had caught 
sight of Hildreth, and was pointing him out to her 
father, who raised his hat with a smile of greeting. 
In a few moments they were on deck, and Hildreth, 
his face a trifle pale, was shaking hands with 
them. 

“What does this mean, you young rascal?’’ 
he demanded. “I thought you were at Ballard, 
playing that barbarous game of football, and here 
you are coolly standing on the deck of a Panama 
liner! Does your father know of this? I ’ll bet it’s 
some wild adventure at college that brings you to 
New York.’’ 

“I have left college,’’ said the embarrassed 
Hildreth. “I am going to the Canal Zone to find 


46 


THE LAST DITCH 


work, as my friend here has assured me of a job. 
There was a little affair at college — however, Dad 
knows of it. I am amazed to see you, for I thought 
Neva was at school and you were building sky- 
scrapers.” 

Mr. Barton had been a friend of his father’s for 
many years, and Neva, now an attractive girl, had 
been Carvel’s childhood friend. They had been 
playmates together in the country town where they 
had lived before Mr. Hildreth went to New York to 
win success, and Neva’s father had become a suc- 
cessful investor in the great city. 

“I’ll explain why I am leaving New York and 
taking a jaunt down to the jungles of Panama, 
Carvel,” Mr. Barton returned. “I recently met a 
gentleman who has spent several years in Panama, 
and he so impressed me with the wonderful undevel- 
oped possibilities of the country, with its fertile 
lands and valuable woods, that, being an investor 
and a promoter, I am going down to gather first- 
hand information, and to see if a company can be 
formed to raise and sell the products. 

“This gentleman owns — or thinks he does, as land 
titles in Panama are uncertain — several thousand 
acres of land in Bocas del Toro, where the banana 
fields of the United Fruit Company are located. I 
hold options on other lands, less accessible than 
these, and he wants us to join forces, form a company, 
and exploit and develop the land. We would have 
several irons in the fire, for the land is not only 
rich in bananas, rubber, and cacao, but there are 


A QUICK DECISION 


47 


abandoned gold mines, pearl fisheries, and the 
cabinet woods of the interior. 

“But it is to straighten out, if possible, the tangle 
of deeds and titles that I am sailing to Panama, and 
as Neva insisted on seeing the Canal, now so near 
completion, I let her come along. If I can get clear 
titles to the land I hold options on, I shall feel free 
to invest in and develop it.” 

Bayliss smiled. 

“Pardon my saying so,” he began, “but it is my 
opinion that even if you got the Panama government 
to clear up the titles, your troubles would have only 
begun. The land in Bocas del Toro, near railroad 
and wharfage, is all right, but the other gentleman 
owns that; as to the rest, well, you may have a gold 
mine within ten miles of the coast, but find it 
impossible to transport the products.” 

“I realize that,” agreed the investor. “The 
total lack of bridges and the inability to procure labor 
are serious handicaps. The Panamanians are too 
lazy to work, and to import Barbadoes negroes is 
costly; many concerns, after spending fortunes to 
acquire clear titles to valuable lands covered with 
cabinet woods, have failed, unable to ship their 
priceless products, or even to raise the bananas. 
However, it is on these lands in Bocas del Toro 
that I pin my faith, if this gentleman can prove his 
ownership.” 

Bayliss, who had traveled all over the republic of 
Panama, was greatly interested in the ambitions of 
the promoter, and as Mr. Barton recognized in the 


r 


48 


THE LAST DITCH 


bronzed young fellow a mine of valuable information, 
the two became engaged in an earnest conversation 
that left Hildreth and the girl alone. 

“Carvel,” said Neva seriously, as they leaned over 
the rail, “Dad never reads the sporting papers, so 
he does not know why you left college. But I am 
alTJvays wild to see the football scores, and I was 
heartbroken when I read the account of the Hamilton 
game. I don’t believe you were a coward!” 

“I was not!” Hildreth answered, with a flash of 
spirit. “Let me tell you of the game, Neva, 
then judge for yourself if I deserve the name of 
coward.” 

Graphically, convincingly, he described the ham- 
mering rushes, the crisis, and the encouragement of 
Hogarth, with its fatal result. The girl listened 
eagerly, and he saw by the sympathy in her eyes 
that she believed. When he finished, this playmate 
of his childhood laid a hand on his arm. 

“But you are going back ! ” she said firmly. “ Your 
father is right. Carvel; this is a serious moment with 
you, and you must not be a coward in spirit. Won’t 
you go right back to Ballard and show the fellows 
that you are brave enough to stand their condem- 
nation?” 

“I — I can’t,” muttered Hildreth, feeling wretched, 
for Neva’s friendship meant much to him. “I 
did n’t play the coward, but they don’t understand. 
I am going to Panama, Neva, to work. I’ll save 
money, and come back to some other college to 
graduate; I ’ll show my father that I can make good.” 


A QUICK DECISION 


; 49 


“Then you are not my old friend!” Neva’S'Cyes 
flashed. “ It is your place to stay at college at any 
cost; if you have been weak, it is not too late to go 
back and redeem yourself. If you were not to 
blame, there is all the more reason for your staying. 
Go now. Carvel, before the ship sails and it is too late 
to return!” 

But the memory of it all was still too crushing, 
and Hildreth could only gaze at her unbelievingly. 

“Do you mean it, Neva?” he asked. “You 
won’t be friends? Why, we have known each other 
since we were children, when we lived in the country, 
and used to talk to each other through the fence 
between our yards! Can’t you see that it is best 
for me to go down there and work on the Canal?” 

“You cannot avoid the truth,” she declared. “ If 
you do not go back to college we are no longer friends. 
Carvel, for my sake, go back!” 

But it was too late now. His encounter with his 
father, his losing of that battle, had weakened him 
and he could not fight. In the football game, with 
his team at the last ditch, he had not weakened in 
spirit, only in body; now he was being forced back 
and soon he would reach that last ditch in his life, 
when he must win out, or be a coward. 

Disowned by his father, discredited by all his 
chums at Ballard, his friendship with Neva broken, 
all because he would not go back and fight it out 
to the end, though the shame and disgrace were 
undeserved, Hildreth looked at the girl for a 
moment, then turned, and, without waiting for 


50 


THE LAST DITCH 


Bayliss, walked toward the companionway, to go 
down to the main deck forward, where the steerage 
was located. 

As he descended he ran against some one who was 
about to ascend the companionway ladder to the 
promenade deck. He looked up and saw that it 
was a handsome young Panamanian, attired in cool 
white flannels, and with a Panama hat thrust 
jauntily on the back of his head. The collegian 
stepped aside, thinking nothing of the incident, but 
the dark-faced young man flared up. 

“ You clumsy peeg! ” he cried. “ Look where you 
go after thees! You haf run into me, you gringo!” 

“Now see here,” grated Hildreth, who was in an 
angry mood, “you say much more to me like that, 
and I’ll spoil that handsome face of yours! I 
don’t feel in such a terribly good humor, and a good 
scrap would let off steam.” 

“You — you heet me!” The little Panamanian 
fairly danced. “Me, I am Jose Gonzales, nephew 
to ze Alcade of Bocas del Toro! I weel make you 
suffer for ze insult; I weel haf you cast into preeson! ” 

With a contemptuous lift of his shoulders, Hildreth 
pushed the frantic little Panamanian out of the way 
and went out on the main deck forward, to watch 
the final preparations for the voyage, the battening 
down of the hatches, the lashing of the derricks, and 
the tightening of the tarred ropes. He was sorry 
that Neva and her father would be aboard the 
Cristobal, but as he was in the steerage and they 
first class, the chances of seeing them were few. In 


A QUICK DECISION 


51 


Panama he might run across them, but Mr. Barton 
would probably press on to the other provinces. 

He had staked his money on the Canal Zone on 
Bayliss’ promise of securing him work there, and he 
grimly resolved to see it to the end. He tried to 
convince himself that he was brave in thus sailing 
away to a strange land, there to try his fortime, 
but deep in his heart he knew he was a coward, that 
his father and Neva were right. 

It was almost sailing time when a young man of 
medium height, compactly built and plainly dressed, 
came hurrying out on the pier, seeking the passenger 
agent. Together they came aboard, and Hildreth 
idly wondered if the late comer would be in the 
steerage with him. Soon the young man appeared 
on the main deck forward, and seeing Hildreth, he 
asked for the steerage. 

“On this deck,” said Carvel, “right inside. We 
are not allowed farther aft than amidships, nor can 
we go on the upper decks. Are you steerage? 
Then, as we are to be bunkies, let’s get acquainted; 
Hildreth’s my name.” 

“I am Douglas Corning,” said the other, “and 
after seeing the Hindus and Chinks, the Arabs and 
Mexicans that will be steerage, I am glad to see an 
American. I am bound for the Canal Zone, as I 
found it advisable and necessary to leave New York 
as soon as I could. Let’s stick together, friend, 
for we can help each other down there.” 

Hildreth agreed, but the fellow’s words had 
shaken his confidence in him. Why had he found it 


52 


THE LAST DITCH 


necessary to leave New York? He might be wanted 
by the police! Perhaps he was a crook, making 
his escape! Hildreth resolved to be on his guard, 
and to watch carefully what money he had left. 
Nevertheless, there was something attractive about 
the chap, and soon they were talking of the voyage 
and of their prospects in the Canal Zone. 

The Cristobal, carrying concrete for the locks at 
Gatun, Miraflores, and Pedro Miguel, left on no 
regular schedule, yet there were two hundred cabin 
passengers when the ship left the pier. Most of 
them were Canal Zone employees, returning, like 
Bayliss, from their vacation in the States, but 
there were some on business bound, like Mr. Barton, 
and a few job hunters. 

Hildreth and Corning stood in the bows as the 
screeching tugs pulled the big liner from her berth, 
out into the river, and headed her in the right 
direction, and Carvel, looking up at the tall office 
building where he knew his father was, wondered 
what the banker would say if he knew his son’s 
destination, as the ship moved down the channel. 

Gradually the crowd on the pier blurred in the 
distance, the tall skyscrapers were passed, and the 
Battery, the Statue of Liberty, and all the sights 
familiar to the seasoned ocean traveler. On the 
promenade deck forward, at the front of the super- 
structure amidships, a number of first-cabin pas- 
sengers had gathered, and Hildreth, from the shield 
of the bow on the main deck, glanced backward 
and up at them. Coming made a remark, but it 


A QUICK DECISION 


53 


went unheeded in the exclamation of anger and 
dismay that broke from his lips. 

Bayliss, still talking to the interested Mr. Barton, 
waved to him, but he saw it not, for leaning on the 
rail was Neva, and with her, a smile of triumph on 
his swarthy face, was Jose Gonzales, the nephew 
of the Alcade of Bocas del Toro! 


CHAPTER VI 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


LA MESS, gentlemen!’* shouted Jacob, the 



^ Venezuelan steerage steward, at six o’clock, 
appearing in the doorway of the steerage. Some- 
where on the upper decks the first-cabin steward 
was calling the passengers to their sumptuous 
supper by banging lustily on a dishpan. Coming 
hurried in, but Hildreth remained for a few minutes 
longer, gazing wistfully at the lights along the Jersey 
coast, his last view of land. 

The Cristobal was steaming along at a good speed, 
having discharged the pilot off Sandy Hook. Hil- 
dreth had sat on the forward hatches, watching 
the ship pass the Narrows, and out into the ocean, 
feeling his loneliness more keenly as the vastness 
of the deep impressed itself on him, stretching away 
as far as the eye could see, blue and mysterious. 

For a moment he had forgotten his misery in 
watching the splendor of his first sunset on the 
ocean; the great red ball, sinking lower and lower 
on the horizon, shed a pathway of light across the 
waste of waters, reflecting like a vivid flame on the 
background of clouds. Then it sank until it seemed 
that barely an inch was between the orb and the 
ocean; a moment more, and it touched and poured 
itself into the sea, disappearing gradually, as though 
swallowed by the mighty Atlantic. 


54 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


55 


“I suppose I must eat,” he ruminated gloomily, 
“but if all that heathen crowd I saw on the pier 
is in the steerage, it will be sickening.” 

Corning greeted him with a wry smile as he 
entered the steerage and took his seat beside the 
young chap. They were the only Americans at 
table, and their appetites were not sharpened by 
the company of Arabs, Chinese, and Mexicans who 
jabbered away in their native tongues, for they were 
a squalid, filthy aggregation. The little Arab girl, 
whose fat mother constantly called “Mari-ah,” had 
no scruples about climbing on to the table, seizing 
in her fat fingers whatever she wanted, and running 
off to eat it on deck. 

They ate from a wooden, trough-like table of 
unplaned boards, using tin plates and heavy iron 
knives, forks, and spoons, helping themselves from 
the big dishes and pans that Jacob brought from 
the kitchen. The manners of the others were shock- 
ing, and Hildreth, accustomed to refinement, could 
not eat; he was surprised at the cheerfulness with 
which Coming adapted himself to circumstances. 

“Seven days of it,” remarked his companion, 
“so one might as well learn how to eat. You should 
be thankful that you have n’t got the Hindus added 
to this menagerie, Hildreth.” 

“Why, don’t they eat with the rest?” asked the 
collegian, noticing for the first time the absence of 
the orientals, with their classic features and black 
faces, long, flowing beards, and heads wound with 
cloth. 


56 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Gracious, no!” exclaimed Coming. “The Hin- 
dus are the most religious people in the world, and 
they would be contaminated by eating with us, 
though that seems impossible, judging from their 
appearance. But they are educated, for I saw them 
reading Sanscrit before supper.” 

Try as he would, Hildreth could not eat when 
associated with the slovenly steerage passengers, 
so he made some sandwiches and betook himself 
to the deck again, to the infinite disgust of Jacob, 
who declared that a king could not ask for better 
food than he served in the steerage. 

On his way out, the collegian stopped at the door- 
way of the room occupied by the Hindus, and 
watched them; one was squatted on the floor, 
engaged in making cakes out of a dough, another 
was impacking pans from their baggage, while in 
guttural tones the third read aloud from a huge 
volume of Hindustani. The bearded orientals 
looked pleased at having an American visit them, 
and they said a lot of things that Hildreth could 
not understand. 

Bayliss came down after supper, and as Coming 
joined them, the three sat on the forward hatch 
and talked. The Mexicans were quarreling in the 
steerage, the Hindus stayed in their bunk room, 
while the Arabs and Chinese stretched out on the 
hatch aft of the mainmast, so the Americans were 
undisturbed. 

“Take your last view of land for five days,” said 
Bayliss. “All you can see now is the outline of 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


57 


the Jersey coast; the next land we see is Watling 
Island, which was the first land that Christopher 
Columbus saw when he made his voyage to the 
West Indies.” 

“Seven days of — this!” mourned Hildreth. 
“With that motley crowd! And when we near 
the tropics, and it gets sizzling hot — ” 

“Wait till we cross the Caribbean,” reminded 
Bob. “ After Cuba and Haiti have been left behind, 
if a trade wind is kicking up a high sea all these 
people will get seasick, and then you will enjoy life. 
But that is for two days only, and then you are at 
Cristobal!” 

“Tell us about the Canal,” urged Corning. “I 
think every American ought to know its history, 
but I confess I have never learned it myself.” 

“Back in 1846,” said Bayliss, who had thoroughly 
studied the history of the Canal, and who knew 
the tragic failure of the French Company and 
De Lesseps, “the United States made a treaty with 
Colombia, then New Granada, by which that 
government gave to our nation the right of way or 
transit across the Isthmus of Panama, on any 
modes of communication then existing or afterward 
constructed, to be open and free to the government 
and citizens of the United States. By the fourth, 
fifth, and sixth articles of this treaty, the United 
States guaranteed to preserve the neutrality of the 
Isthmus, so that free transit from ocean to ocean 
might not be embarrassed, and the United States 
also guaranteed the rights of sovereignty and 


5 


58 


THE LAST DITCH 


property which New Granada had and possessed 
over the Isthmus. 

“Our nation supposed this meant that we were 
to keep transit uninterrupted across Panama, even 
if we had to use force; in fact, the United States of 
Colombia several times requested our government 
to land forces on the Isthmus to keep order. 

“We had for many years thought of building a 
canal between the two oceans, and at first the 
Nicaraguan route was favored. None of the pri- 
vate companies formed ever did anything, and when 
the French company received a land grant from the 
United States of Colombia to try the Panama route, 
we ceased to bother. 

“After the French failed, many Americans tried 
to get our government to try again, and the Spanish- 
American War, when the Oregon sailed around the 
Horn, gave an impetus to the plan. Finally Con- 
gress authorized the building of such a canal, 
leaving the President to decide on Nicaragua or 
Panama, with opinion favoring the latter route, 
for the Panama Railroad lay along this line, and 
also the work done by the French. 

“The Walker Commission made a report on both 
routes, stating that if we bought the rights and 
property of the De Lesseps Company for not more 
than forty million dollars, the Panama route would 
be better; otherwise, they favored the Nicaraguan 
route. This decision scared the New French Com- 
pany, which had been holding the concessions, for 
if Nicaragua were chosen they could never sell out 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


59 


to another nation, so they offered all rights, work 
done, and machinery at this price. 

“ In December, 1^2, the Colombian government 
sent Dr. Thomas Herran to Washington as charge 
d'affaires, and he and Secretary Hay began drafting 
the necessary treaty, which on January 22, 1903, 
was signed. It was agreed that Colombia was to 
allow the new Panama Canal Company to sell all 
its rights, privileges, and property, including the 
Panama Railroad Company, to the United States; 
we were to have perpetual administrative control 
of a strip of land thirty miles wide, extending across 
the Isthmus. 

“However, the sovereignty of the Zone would 
remain with Colombia. Colombian courts were to 
settle Colombian disputes, and American courts 
our quarrels, with a third, a mixed court, to fix 
international differences. We were to pay Colom- 
bia ten million dollars cash, and a hundred thousand 
dollars a year rental, to begin nine years after the 
treaty was ratified. 

“On March 17, 1903, the treaty was ratified by 
us; then trouble started, for the politicians of 
Bogota, headed by Dr. Marroquin, seemed to think 
we were sworn to the Panama route, and they tried 
a hold-up game on the United States. Matters 
hung fire for some time, when Hay reminded Colom- 
bia that the negotiations were instituted by them, 
and should they reject the treaty tjle friendliness 
between the countries might suffer in a way Colombia 
would regret.’* 


60 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Bully for Hay!” said Coming. 

“On June 20, 1903, the Congress met in Bogota, 
and on August 12 the Colombian Senate rejected 
the treaty. On September 8, 1903, Colombia 
told the United States that, despite this rejection, 
it would propose negotiations again the following 
July, which did not please us. All this time the 
shareholders of the French Canal Company were 
crazy with suspense, for, after all, we might choose 
Nicaragua and thus render their shares valueless. 

“The United States was between two fires, for 
Nicaragua offered favorable privileges to get the 
Canal, but she might be a robber, too, if she knew 
we were forced by Colombia to turn back to the 
other country for a route. Then the Panama 
revolution, famous in history, took place. There 
had been fifty-three of these in fifty-seven years in 
Panama, financed by foreign capitalists. 

“ The merchants of Panama, with the stockholders 
of the French Company, anxious to sell, had an 
interest in causing a revolution that would make 
sure the Panama Canal would be dug. Panama 
hated Colombia, and would have revolted before, 
had we allowed it. But one thing held up the 
revolution — the treaty in which the United States 
had promised, in 1846, to defend Colombia’s prop- 
erty rights in the Isthmus, and to keep transit open. 

“Most people believe that we were justified, after 
Colombia’s high-handed proceedings, in neglecting 
the treaty we had acknowledged, and others think the 
Roosevelt administration provoked the revolution 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


61 


in Panama. The Panamanians did not know how 
we would act, and they formed the Revolution- 
ary Junta, citizens of Panama and Colon, which 
sent Dr. Amador to New York for information. 
Johnson’s history of Panama and the Canal states 
that Secretary Hay informed Amador that no 
matter how the United States sympathized with 
Panama’s hopes of independence, or how it might 
resent Colombia’s rejection of the Canal treaty, 
it could not aid a revolution, or promise aught in 
advance. 

“ It would fulfill its duties as a neutral, and main- 
tain its rights and privileges under the treaty of 
1846 with New Granada. These rights and privi- 
leges included free neutral transit across the Isthmus, 
and the guarantee of the sovereignty of land against 
alien aggression, though it did not guarantee Colom- 
bian possession of the Isthmus against local and 
domestic revolution!'" 

“Ah!” exclaimed Hildreth. “There is the piv- 
otal point!” 

“Dr. Amador went back to Panama,” Bob went 
on, “and the revolution took place. But there was 
no bloodshed, for American warships appeared to 
see that free transit was maintained; the Navy 
Department on November 2 ordered free and imin- 
terrupted transit, for the railroad to be occupied if 
threatened by armed force, and for the prevention 
of the landing of an armed force with hostile intent, 
either government or insurgent, at Colon, Porto 
Bello, or other places. 


62 


THE LAST DITCH 


“An army of four hundred Colombian soldiers 
had been sent to Colon on the third of November. 
As the revolution had not started, the warships 
could not interfere, and they landed. The generals 
went over to Panama ahead of their troops, then 
the Panama railroad refused to transport the army; 
so the Colombian generals were disarmed and the 
Republic of Panama proclaimed on November 4. 
Three days later the United States recognized the 
new republic. 

“The politicians at Bogota were crushed, for 
they had not thought we would recognize Panama; 
they notified Washington that if we would put 
down the Panama revolt the next Colombian 
congress would recognize the Herran-Hay Treaty. 
But we had already recognized the Republic of 
Panama, and Colombia’s chances were gone!” 

“Has there not been a lot of criticism of our 
government about the whole affair?” demanded 
Coming. “Aren’t we accused of helping on the 
revolt in order to get the Canal Zone from Panama? ” 

“The whole thing shows that we permitted the 
revolution,” said Bob, “rather than urged it, and we 
did so after Colombia had broken faith with us. 
Anyhow, we got the Canal Zone from Panama, and 
you will see how the United States has gone on with 
the great work.” 

“What did we pay Panama?” asked Hildreth. 

“By the Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty of November 
18, 1903,” finished Bob, “we agreed to pay Panama 
ten millions cash, and beginning nine years from 


STRICTLY STEERAGE 


63 


date, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars yearly 
rental. In return we got all we asked for, a zone ten 
miles wide over which we have the ‘rights, power 
and authority which the United States would possess 
and exercise if it were the sovereign of the territory, 
to the entire exclusion of this exercise by the Republic 
of Panama, or of any sovereign rights, power, or 
authority.’ 

“Article Two of this treaty, says, ‘The Republic 
of Panama further grants to the United States in 
perpetuity the use, occupation, and control of any 
other lands and waters outside the zone above 
described which may be necessary and convenient 
for the construction, maintenance, and operation, 
with sanitation and protection, of said Canal.’” 

“Now I imderstand matters more clearly,” 
laughed Coming. “When I read the history of the 
French Company, I’ll be ready to see the Canal 
under the American administration.” 

A few minutes later Bayliss went up to the first 
cabin, after they had thanked him for his informa- 
tion, and Hildreth followed Corning to their bunks 
in the steerage. They were hard and stuffy, and 
the little room was hot, but Coming soon dropped 
off to sleep; Hildreth, however, tossed from side to 
side, listening to the chatter of the Mongols in the 
room adjoining. 

“Strictly steerage,” he groaned, “and seven days 
of it!” 


CHAPTER VII 


THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 

I T WAS pleasant out on the forward hatches 
of the Cristobal, after the blazing, blistering 
sun that beat down all day from a copper sky had 
dipped into the ocean, the cool, tropical night had 
come on, and the delightful trade wind that lashed 
the Caribbean into mountainous waves blew across 
the main deck forward. All the stars were out, 
gleaming with a hard brilliance, the wireless snapped 
and crackled at the masthead, the steady wash of 
the waves was soothing, while the orchestra soimded 
back in the salon. 

The next morning would find the Cristobal at 
anchor in Limon Bay, waiting for the quarantine 
officers to come aboard. Even now, near midnight, 
the lights of Porto Bello, the island twenty miles 
from Colon, twinkled in the distance off the port bow, 
and the passengers were astir with eagerness to land. 

The six days had passed miserably for Hildreth 
in the squalor of the steerage, with his misery making 
life bitter for him, though Coming had accepted 
his surroundings with cheerfulness, and had even 
made friends with fat little Mariah, the little Arabian 
maid. 

As the tropics drew near, the heat by day 
was stifling, radiated as the sun’s rays were from 


64 


THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 65 


the iron plates of the deck, and even at night, in 
the stuffy little bunks where they were tossed by the 
roll of the ship, the small porthole admitted but 
little air, though it was cooler on deck. Hildreth 
decided that his companion had seen the world, for 
he accepted what came with a smile, which the 
embittered collegian was unable to do. 

Five days out from New York, Watling Island 
arose from the blue ocean, a long, low strip of white 
sand that sank into the water astern; Castle, Bird 
Rock, and Fortune islands were sighted, and in 
gazing at the gleaming beaches, the tall palm trees, 
and the frame houses, Hildreth forgot for the time 
his loneliness, that had been more intense when the 
vastness of the ocean surrounded him. Cuba 
loomed up on the starboard bow, and for two hours 
the coast, with the wrecked Norwegian steamer, and 
the wooded mountains inland, could plainly be seen. 
That afternoon the gloomy outlines of Haiti, the 
volcanic republic of negroes, arose on the port 
side. They could see little villages, from which 
sailing craft ventured out, nestling in the shadow of 
the towering mountains. 

Then Haiti and the smaller islands faded away, 
and the next land they would see rising from the 
water would be Manzanillo Island, where Cristobal 
and Colon, formerly Aspinwall, are located. 

While the first-cabin passengers attended the last- 
night dance, Bayliss, who preferred the pleasant 
nights on the forward hatches, exchanging college 
memories with Hildreth, had come down from the 


66 


THE LAST DITCH 


promenade deck. Coming was reading in his bunk, 
but rather than swelter inside, Carvel was stretched 
on the after hatch, lulled by the roll of the ship, 
and Bob sat beside him. 

“I guess I have told you all about Panama and 
the Canal Zone that I know,” laughed Bob, after 
another question from Hildreth. “I have turned 
myself into a history for you, and a bureau of 
information, on this voyage. To-morrow morning 
we land at Cristobal, and then you will be plunged 
into the new land, to see for yourself its wonders. 
Remember, though, the Canal is nearly done, and 
only at four places can you find much colossal work 
being accomplished.” 

Hildreth was silent. In his mind he was fighting 
a great battle, trying to decide if he should tell 
Bayliss the truth of his leaving Ballard; the two 
collegians had become great friends on the voyage, 
for Bob had come down to be with Carvel every 
night, and Hildreth, who was honest, whatever 
other faults he might have, felt that he should let 
Bob know how matters stood. 

“Bob,” he began at last, “I have gone on letting 
you think I left Ballard because of some escapade I 
was in, but that is not the case. In the football 
game with Hamilton, my chums believed I played 
the coward, but I — ” 

“Never mind, old man,” interposed Bayliss, 
seeing that his friend was determined to plunge 
ahead, “you had a sore side, and your right guard 
plunged his elbow into it at the critical moment.” 


THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 67 


“How did you know?” demanded Hildreth, 
amazed. 

“There are some newspapers in the reading room,” 
explained Bayliss. “Then I have become ac- 
quainted with Mr. Barton and his daughter, and 
she told me the account you had given her of the 
affair.” 

“Then you will desert me, too!” said Carvel 
bitterly. “My friends at college denounced me 
without a trial, my father cast me off, Neva broke 
our friendship because I would not go back to face 
the scorn of my chums, and now you — ” 

“I will stay with you,” answered Bob quietly. 
“I have played football, I have been to college, and 
I know how you dread what you had to face, since 
I have been in a similar position, though for a 
different reason. If you want me for a friend that 
will stick I ’ll stand by you, and get you work in the 
Canal Zone.” 

Their hands met in a firm clasp, and the compact 
of friendship was made. 

“ I have experienced what you suffered at Ballard,” 
said Bayliss, after a pause, “and I was a coward, 
perhaps — that is why I am not at Hamilton now. 
I cannot explain it to you now, but perhaps some 
time you will know. Let’s quit talking on such 
gloomy subjects. Do you know, there is something 
mighty queer about this Panamanian, Gonzales, 
and his acquaintance with Mr. Barton?” 

“I have wondered how they came to know one 
another,” agreed Hildreth. “He and I bad an 


68 


THE LAST DITCH 


encounter on the day we sailed; I ran into him at 
the foot of the companionway, and he was highly 
indignant that a ‘gringo’ had touched him.” 

“The ‘Spiggoties’ hate the Americans,” laughed 
Bob. “They call the United States the ‘Vulture 
of the North,’ and fear that we will swallow South 
America in time. Oh, we call them ‘Spiggoties’ 
because when the natives were first spoken to, they 
replied, ‘No spiggoty Inglis,’ and that is their 
nickname now. 

“But the way I figure it out is this — young 
Gonzales is the son of the Panamanian gentleman 
who has interested Mr. Barton in the Bocas del 
Toro land, and in the inland tracts, and this wealthy 
Spiggoty, who is as treacherous as his kind are, 
wants to get possession of the Bocas del Toro land, 
on which Mr. Barton holds an option. Now, as 
Mr. Barton wants to develop the land that Gonzales 
owns in the interior, the worthy gentleman has 
craftily suggested a partnership; but, let him 
destroy in any way Mr. Barton’s options on the 
Bocas del Toro land, so that he can exercise his 
second option, and get the coveted land, all deals 
are off!” 

“You may be right,” pondered Hildreth. “So 
Gonzales is the gentleman’s son, is he?” 

“I have warned Mr. Barton as to Panamanian 
treachery,” said Bob, “but he will not heed. He 
imagines that if he can clear up the titles and 
exercise his options on the Bocas del Toro land, 
then Gonzales, to get in on the money to be made 


THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 69 


there, will give him a chance to buy or be partners 
in the valuable woods of mahogany and the like 
that the Panamanian owns. But young Gonzales 
will tear up those options of Mr. Barton’s, if he gets 
a chance, so his father can buy the land on the 
second options, and laugh at the investor.” 

“I don’t like it,” returned Hildreth firmly. “It 
looks as though he were making friends with Neva 
just to get a chance at the options. I don’t trust 
that brown little Panamanian, and Mr. Barton 
should have such valuable papers locked up in the 
purser’s safe.” 

“And be on your own guard, Hildreth,” warned 
Bayliss, as he went up the companionway to the 
promenade deck. “He will knife you in a second, 
if he gets a chance. It is hard to realize how lawless 
and hotblooded these Latin- Americans are, but they 
are a vengeful crowd.” 

Hildreth remained on the hatch, enjoying the cool 
breeze and watching the broken clouds overhead, 
the distant flashes of lightning, and the electric 
outline of the wireless when the operator was send- 
ing. He was wondering about Mr. Gonzales and 
Mr. Barton, and if they were fighting a battle of 
wits, each trying to get possession of the other’s 
land without a loss of all rights to his own. If so, 
he decided, Neva’s father was in danger, for Gon- 
zales the younger looked like a chap who would halt 
at nothing to gain his ends. 

Then Carvel tried to imagine why Bob Bayliss 
had left Hamilton, especially after his fine track 


70 


THE LAST DITCH 


record of the spring before; he tried to think what 
trouble his friend could have had, but at last gave 
up in vain. He became sleepy, and deciding that 
even the hard bunk was better than the hatch, 
he arose and walked down the iron plates of the 
deck, toward the steerage. 

As he neared the door he looked up at the super- 
structure above him, which was aglow with lights, 
except for the darkened bridge. He heard the 
clang of the bells in the crow’s nest, the call of the 
lookout that another light on Porto Bello was 
sighted, then he saw two figures on the promenade 
deck; one was Neva, and the other — Jose Gonzales! 

For a moment he stood, then, realizing that 
he had no right to speak to his old friend now, he 
started to enter the steerage. At that instant he 
heard a faint scream from the girl, and he saw that 
the Panamanian was striving to wrest something 
from her, that she was struggling violently. In 
three strides the collegian had bounded up the com- 
panionway and was on the promenade deck, which 
was deserted save for the three of them. Gonzales, 
unconscious of Hildreth’s coming, was conquering 
the girl. 

“I weel haf them!” he panted. “Ah, now I weel 
tear them up!” 

Hildreth’s fist shot out straight from the shoulder 
and caught him with terrific force back of the ear. 
Another blow smote his neck, and he sank with a 
groan to the deck, while Hildreth caught the fright- 
ened girl. But despite her alarm she recognized 



Page 70 

Hildreth’s fist shot out straight from the shoulder and Gonzales 

sank with a groan to the deck 





THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 71 


him and drew away; before she could speak, the 
terror in her eyes warned him, and he whirled to 
face the Panamanian, who had drawn a knife. 

In a few seconds Hildreth, holding the struggling 
Gonzales with one hand, had twisted the knife 
away and sent it whirling over the side. Admin- 
istering a few hearty kicks to the nephew of the 
Alcade of Bocas del Toro that hurt his dignity more 
than his anatomy, he sent him raging from the 
scene. Then it was that the girl faced him. 

“You are brave!” she said. “Father dropped 
these papers from his pocket at supper, and I picked 
them up, intending to give them to him, but he has 
been in the smoking room; Gonzales saw me secure 
them, and for some reason he tried to get them 
from me.” 

“The options!” exclaimed Hildreth, after an 
examination. “Get them to your father or the 
purser at once, Neva, before he tries to destroy 
them, and tell your father of his efforts.” 

“Carvel, won’t you go back?” she begged. 
“You have proved to-night that you are not a 
coward, that you have never been one. Go, and be 
a man!” 

“ I can’t, Neva ! ” he protested. “ Physically I can 
fight them all, but the shame and loneliness are too 
much; their bitter scorn cannot be met! You are 
asking too much of me!” 

“Then never speak to me again!” she said 
sadly. “You are not worthy of my friendship. 
Carvel. Good-by.” 


72 


THE LAST DITCH 


Without another word she turned and left the 
collegian, standing at the top of the companionway, 
staring after her. He knew that he was unworthy 
of her friendship, but there was no turning back 
now, so near to Panama; he must see his deter- 
mination through. 

After an hour -in the intense heat of the bunk- 
room, in desperation he seized his pillow and went 
out on the forward hatch again, where it was delight- 
fully cool, with the trade wind blowing across the 
ship. Soon he was in a deep slumber, wholly una- 
ware of the deadly peril that threatened him, for 
crawling stealthily over the hatch, with a keen knife 
in his upraised hand, was one of the Mexicans 
of the steerage. 

On the deck above, Gonzales, the treacherous, 
leaned over the rail and watched with exultant 
gaze the approaching death of his enemy. This 
was a sweet revenge for the thrashing he had received 
at Hildreth’s hands earlier that night. No one 
could save the gringo now, for the semidarkness 
hid the black deed from all eyes, save those of 
the arch plotter. Nearer and nearer writhed the 
Mexican. A foot more, and the keen knife would 
fall! 

Yet Nature herself came to the rescue. At the 
critical moment, when an instant’s delay meant 
death to the sleeping collegian, a heavy wave struck 
the ship quarteringly on the port bow, and a great 
cloud of spray came wraithlike through the gloom, 
bursting with drenching force on the hatch, and 


THE TREACHERY OF THE PANAMANIAN 73 


arousing Carvel to a sense of his danger. Like a 
cat he leaped to his feet, ducked low under the 
murderous blow, and came up with a swinging upper 
cut that hurled the Mexican from the hatch and 
laid him quivering on the iron plates of the deck. 

“You murderous beast!” Hildreth raged. “I'd 
like to throw your carcass over the side. I wonder 
what you have against me — can it be that Gon- 
zales — ” 

He dashed up to the promenade deck, but the 
Panamanian, furious at the failure of his dastardly 
attempt, had disappeared, and he could not be sure 
that the treacherous Gonzales was at the bottom 
of the affair. After giving the recovering Mexican 
a warning not to repeat his work, he let him creep 
away with aching jaw and head. It was out of the 
question for the collegian to sleep on the hatch again, 
so he made his way regretfully to the bunkroom, 
where he acquainted Coming with the attack on 
him. j 

“Why did you not throw the hound into the 
sea?” exploded that young man. “We must lock 
this door, old man, even if we roast. Never mind, 
in the morning we shall be in Panama!” 

The heat was stifling with the porthole alone to 
give air; sleep was out of the question, and Carvel 
on the top bunk next to the room of the Mexicans, 
soon heard the low mutter of voices. The partition 
did not extend to the top of the room, and as his 
light was out he raised his head and peered over; 
there were three Mexicans, paying strict attention 


6 


74 


THE LAST DITCH 


to the words of a fourth man, none other than Jose 
Gonzales! 

“It is a plot!” Hildreth told himself, but to his 
dismay they spoke in Spanish, and all he under- 
stood from the jabber was “Senorita — Cruces — 
Bocas del Toro!” 

“I’ll have Bayliss warn Mr. Barton to-morrow,” 
he decided, as he lay down again. “After the way 
young Gonzales tried to tear up those options when 
Mr. Barton carelessly lost them and Neva recovered 
the papers, there is some villainy being planned.” 

Then he lay awake for a long while, as the big 
Cristobal wallowed through the rough Caribbean, 
thinking of his bitter experience at Ballard, won- 
dering what his old chums were doing. Then he 
began to look forward. To-morrow he would be in 
Panama, in the Canal Zone! 


Part II 


CHAPTER VIII 

IN A STRANGE LAND 

TTILDRETH awoke the next morning to find 
that the motion of the ship had ceased, and 
jumping excitedly from the bunk, he looked from 
the porthole for his first view of Panama. But it 
was too foggy for a clear vision, and as he and 
Coming were on the starboard side, what sight they 
had was of the Caribbean Sea. So they dressed 
hurriedly and hastened out on deck. 

It was a dismal scene, and the collegian was 
depressed, remembering all the bitterness that had 
been his since the football game. The Cristobal was 
anchored off quarantine, and the launch bearing 
the yellow flag was headed for the liner, with white- 
clad officials who would examine the vaccination 
records of the passengers, examine the steerage 
for trachoma, and give the ship a clean slate before 
it was permitted to dock. 

A heavy, gray rain was driving across the harbor 
in sheets, vivid, forked lightning split the dull sky 
at frequent intervals, and the crash of thunder 
seemed to rock the ship. Hildreth was experiencing 
his first tropical thunder storm, and for a time he 
was awed by the grandeur of it. 

75 


76 


THE LAST DITCH 


Standing in the dcx)rway of the steerage, Hildreth 
gazed across the gray, rain-beaten water to the 
curving bow of the white beach, with the great 
docks projecting from it like an arrow about to be 
shot; he saw the tall, graceful palm trees, bending 
under the torrents that fell, and beneath them, 
orderly rows of green, screened bungalows. Isthmian 
Canal Commission houses, laid off as evenly as a 
city in the States. There was the De Lesseps house 
on the promontory, now headquarters for the 
Atlantic division of the Canal Zone Administration, 
and the statue of Columbus and the Indian in front 
of it. 

Farther away, across Cristobal, the maze of masts 
and black funnels that arose told vaguely where 
the shipping of Colon, the port visited by freighters 
of every nation, lined up and down the Avenida 
del Frente, where the liners of the Hamburg- Amer- 
ican, United Fruit, Royal Mail Steam Packet, and 
other companies dock. At Cristobal, the American 
town, the ships of the Panama Railroad Company 
alone land, owned and operated by the United 
States government. 

On board, all was confusion and excitement with 
the preparations for landing after the seven days’ 
voyage. The quarantine officers lined up the 
steerage passengers and examined their arms, the 
three Hindus alone failing to pass muster, but after 
a stormy scene allowing themselves to risk contami- 
nation rather than be deported to Bombay. After 
the quarantine launch had sped away toward the 


IN A STRANGE LAND 


77 


misty shore, the Cristobal weighed anchor again 
and was towed toward the dock. 

The long pier, at which the Panama was warped, 
was crowded; there were Canal Zone officials, clad 
in white flannels, young civil engineers and sur- 
veyors in khaki and leather puttees, American 
women with white parasols, and little children; the 
more aristocratic Panamanians, jauntily attired, 
lounged at ease against the bales and boxes, while 
the peons, in overalls, sat on the floor, lazily watch- 
ing the gangway being put up to the promenade 
deck. 

In Hildreth’s eyes the Panamanian peon did not 
seem different from the American negro, and he 
could imagine he was at a small wharf in Virginia, 
where dozens of them loafed on the pilings. One 
of them, standing out from the shelter of the pier 
shed, was being drenched by the rain, but he did 
not seem to care, evidently unwilling to expend the 
energy necessary to get out of the rain. 

The customs officers were already busy with the 
baggage, and the great derricks on the main deck 
were swinging huge nets of bales and boxes to the 
pier. In the background a train of yellow cars 
could be seen, each marked “The Panama Railroad 
Company.” Bayliss, who had a lot of baggage to 
get through the custom lines, rattled down the 
companionway to the main deck for a word with 
Carvel and Coming, who were gazing with undivided 
interest at the new land before them. 

“Come up on the promenade deck,” he called. 


78 


THE LAST DITCH 


“We go down the gangway from there, and after 
our baggage is passed, we take the special train 
which the Panama Railroad sends for every incoming 
government ship. I’ll take you over to Culebra, 
and to-morrow we shall see to the jobs. If in any 
way we get separated in the crowd, get on the 
special train and I’ll find you.” 

“Does that train belong to the Panama Railroad 
Company?” asked Corning. “I see it has the 
name on the cars and engine.” 

“Most of the passenger stock is marked that 
way,” explained Bob. “That of the excavation 
and Canal work is marked “1. C. C.” or “U. S.” 
We’ll reach home in less than two hours, and find 
Dad at once.” 

In the excitement of the strange scenes, Hildreth 
had quite forgotten for the time the misery of the 
past, the scene with his father, and that with Neva. 
He saw Mr. Barton and his daughter at a distance, 
but they were soon swallowed up in the crowd that 
surged out on the dock, mingling with those who 
had come to meet returning relatives and friends. 
There were many greetings, and Hildreth remem- 
bered that he was a stranger in a strange land. 

So engrossed was the collegian in watching the 
shifting scenes on the dock, and in viewing the fussy 
little government tugs that skimmed about Limon 
Bay, and the lazy Panamanians who stood around, 
rain soaked and heedless, that he failed to notice he 
had become separated from Bayliss and Coming. 
When at last he realized that the crowd had pushed 


IN A STRANGE LAND 


79 


them apart, he looked about him in alarm, but was 
unable to find them again. 

“He said to take the Panama special,’* reflected 
Hildreth, forgetful of the yellow train that waited. 
“I must find where the station is, or I shall miss 
it.” 

As his baggage consisted only of a suitcase, which 
he had hastily packed when he left college, it soon 
passed the customs and he strode from the dock. 
He hesitated for a moment, gazing at the rain that 
fell from a leaden sky, but he had no raincoat or 
umbrella, and as the peons were getting wet phil- 
osophically, he could see nothing else to do, especially 
as the torrents showed no likelihood of ceasing. 
So he turned up his coat collar and struck out 
through Cristobal, walking along one of the macad- 
amized streets, past the screened houses. 

Had he but known it, he could have taken a 
Canal Zone carriage and ridden to any point in 
Cristobal or Colon for ten cents, gold, but he 
imagined the rickety conveyances, drawn by scraggy 
little horses and driven by Panamanians, were 
the private property of the rich Spiggoties, though 
he was at a loss to explain the gongs that clamored 
on them. Not knowing that the carriage system 
in the Canal Zone supplies the lack of street cars, 
passing given points at regular intervals, he walked, 
and got thoroughly soaked. 

There is nothing more depressing than rainy 
weather, and Hildreth, hurrying along through the 
tropical downpour, was sick at heart. It was 


80 


THE LAST DITCH 


intensely humid, and his exertion caused him to 
perspire freely. The rain trickled down his neck, 
ran off his nose, and caused him extreme discomfort, 
but he thought that the special left from the Colon 
station, as an American on the dock had told him 
the station was in the Panama town, and he lost 
no time in getting there. 

“They are surely up to date down here!’* he 
marveled, as he passed through Cristobal, which 
is far more beautiful in a civic way than are most 
of our American towns. “ Uncle Sam has exercised 
the right to do as he pleases with the strip gotten 
from Panama!’’ 

He saw housewives at work in their kitchens, or 
buying provisions from the commissary wagons 
that backed up to their doors; little children played 
on the double porches, and he heard a piano, with 
a woman singing. It was all so homelike that it 
was hard to feel he was in a strange land, until he 
looked at the palm trees that towered above the 
bungalows. 

Farther on, he passed a finely appointed fire- 
engine house, with modem apparatus, the big 
horses in their stalls, and the engine shining and 
ready, for all the world like a city fire department 
at home, with the uniformed men sitting around, 
waiting an alarm. Next came the Canal Zone police 
station, and Hildreth looked in, to see the tall, 
splendidly built Canal Zone policemen, the desk 
sergeant, and the clerk, just as they looked back 
in the States. He saw the post office next, and 


IN A STRANGE LAND 


81 


turning, he walked out in front of the big commis- 
sary stores, where everything necessary to the wel- 
fare of the Canal Zone workers can be had. 

It reminded him of the department stores of big 
American cities. There were women with market 
baskets, buying with their books of commissary 
tickets, for everything is purchased with tickets in 
the Canal Zone; busy clerks, for the most part 
colored, waited on the customers. There were 
various departments for food, clothing, and other 
things, and Hildreth saw different doors where the 
“gold,” meaning white, and the “silver,” other 
employees, entered. 

Bayliss had told him much about Panama, and 
he remembered that the silver workers were paid 
off in Panamanian coin, which is worth half as much 
as American money, almost coin for coin, and as 
the Spiggoties have no paper currency, and it takes 
two big, silver cartwheels to equal one of our dollars, 
it is not an unusual sight to see the silver employees 
leave the paymaster’s office with a sack of money 
on their shoulders, their month’s wages! 

Then the collegian crossed a street beyond the 
commissary stores, and was in Colon! 

Nothing, neither reading matter nor lecture, can 
teach the thorough effectiveness of the United 
States government’s administration in Panama and 
the Canal Zone as does the transition from the 
beautiful American town of Cristobal to the 
squalid, rickety, ramshackle city of Colon, though 
even with its present appearance it is nothing like 


82 


THE LAST DITCH 


what it was before the Americans came there and 
cleaned it up, enforcing sanitation. Instantly Hil- 
dreth was struck by the vast difference between a 
nation of the highest civilization and one of tropical 
laziness, and he began dimly to understand what 
wonders his nation had worked. 

All the buildings along the one side of the Avenida 
del Frente, for on the other side are the wharves 
of Colon, are made of wood; big two- and three- 
story houses, with double and even triple porches 
extending over the pavement, with stairways open- 
ing on the sidewalk and running up into the regions 
above. The general appearance of Colon is one of 
insecurity and frailty; one is forced to think that 
a strong wind or a fire would quickly devastate the 
Panamanian town, for all the buildings in the blocks 
seem to join. 

There are Japanese and Chinese shops along the 
street, stores run by Jews, Greek restaurants, and 
American drug stores; almost every other place 
seems to be a long bar room, with the numberless 
little round tables, and, what amused the collegian, 
the inevitable barber chair near the entrance, with 
a native barber at work. Everything in Colon is 
wide open, night and day; the absence of window 
glass impresses the stranger until he gets accustomed 
to it, and the presence of locks on the tumbledown 
shacks is amusing in the extreme. 

There are several money changers’ establishments 
here, and Hildreth wondered at the careless way as 
much as two thousand dollars in coins and bills 


IN A STRANGE LAND 


83 


would be spread out on top of a box, right out 
along the street! For a reasonable fee, these money 
changers will change currency of any nation into 
Panamanian money, or the reverse, if a traveler is 
leaving Panama. Only twice has it been recorded 
that any one made off with the money, each time 
when a French cruiser was in Colon, but it is wonder- 
ful that some one does not pick up boxes and all. 

The low, yellow station of the Panama Railroad 
Company was in sight ahead, and Hildreth quickened 
his pace. Hurrying into the waiting room, he saw 
that there were different ticket windows and rooms 
for the first-class and second-class passengers. On 
the latter side there were giant Barbadoes negroes, 
indolent peons, sloe-eyed Chinese, and Martinique 
women. But there was no time to lose, so he made 
his way to the window, where a clean-cut young 
American waited on him. 

“What time does the special leave?” he inquired 
of the alert young man in shirtsleeves, who looked 
at him in wonder. 

“The special?” he echoed. “You mean the 
train that met the Cristobal? Why, that leaves the 
pier, friend; didn’t you see a string of yellow cars 
at the back of the pier, waiting for the ship to dock? 
It does n’t come to the station, but goes on out past 
Cristobal, across the Isthmus, leaving returning 
Canal workers at their stations.” 


CHAPTER IX 

HILDRETH TO THE RESCUE 

H ildreth was aghast. The special had gone, 
bearing with it Bayliss and Coming, and on 
the former the collegian in exile had put his hopes 
of securing work in the Canal Zone. A stranger in 
a strange land, he had forgotten the name of the 
town where Bob had said he lived, and he did not 
understand the compactness of the administrative 
work, or he could have found out at the Atlantic 
Division Building at Cristobal. There was a train 
about to leave for Panama City, a regular, but 
Hildreth decided it would be better to wait in 
Colon, in the hope that Bob might come for him. 

After all, he reflected with the old bitterness, he 
had no claim on the young fellow who had been so 
friendly to him on the Cristobal, and as for Douglas 
Coming, the memory of that likable but mysterious 
chap’s words in New York still puzzled Carvel. 
He turned away from the station, pulling out what 
money he had left in order to ascertain his resources. 

“Sixteen dollars!” he murmured. “Well, that 
will see me through for a week, and in that time I 
can get a job, for sure. This is Saturday, so I will 
hang around Colon and see this end of the Canal 
first, and perhaps Bayliss will look me up to- 
morrow.” 


84 


HILDRETH TO THE RESCUE 


85 


What struck the collegian more than anything 
else that he saw as he passed along the Avenida 
del Frente, the show street of Colon, was the lottery 
business; he saw the office, with its busy clerks, 
and at every turn he was accosted by wrinkled old 
women seated on boxes, holding out to him the long 
pink tickets of the Lotterie de Panama, and in the 
windows of the money changers* offices they hung 
invitingly from wires. Everything seemed to remind 
him of the lottery, for even the stores and bar rooms 
were agencies for the tickets that were on sale 
each week; here and there along the street Americans 
and Panamanians bought, just for luck! 

Bayliss had told Hildreth and Coming of this 
famous institution, which is legalized in Panama. 
It is run under a government franchise, and a certain 
percentage of the proceeds goes to charity. For 
a wonder, it is honestly nm, the prizes being paid 
promptly at Panama or Colon on presentation of 
the winning numbers. The tickets, numbered from 
1 to 9999, are sold each week across the Isthmus 
from end to end, and each Sunday in Panama 
City there is a public drawing by a child of three 
or four years. The holders of the winning num- 
bers drawn get the big prize, and the smaller 
prizes. 

The lottery is a great sport among the natives 
and the Americans, and every Sunday there is a 
feverish interest to know which number has taken 
the Big Prize, as no one concerns himself with the 
smaller gains. 


86 


THE LAST DITCH 


“On Sunday,’* Bob had explained, “the number 
that wins the first prize is posted in the lottery build- 
ings in Panama and Colon, so that the agony of 
national suspense can be relieved. If you hold the 
winning number, your money is assured, for it pays 
them to run the thing on the square.” 

So Hildreth, as the idea appealed to him of having 
one chance out of 9999 to win, yielded to temptation 
and paused before one of the old women, who held 
out her book of lottery tickets. The collegian told 
himself that he was as likely to win as any one, 
which is the argument of those who have played 
it for nine years without success. He asked her 
the price of a pink slip. 

“Two dollar one half, silver,” she replied. “Get 
ze lucky number here!” 

Thanks to Bayliss, Hildreth knew the value of 
“Spiggoty ” money, and the gold and silver meaning, 
for in Panama all United States money is “gold” 
and all Panamanian is “silver”; thus a silver Amer- 
ican dollar is gold there. But he did not know that 
because they have no paper money, the natives 
seize eagerly on our bills, and give all change in 
their heavy coins. So, when he handed the woman 
a ten-dollar note and received eight dollars and 
seventy-five cents in change, he got sixteen silver 
“Spiggoty” dollars, and a lot of smaller change. 

“I’ll have to have a cart!” exclaimed Hildreth. 
“Here, what number shall I draw?” 

He had been brought up with no idea of the 
value of money. His father was rich, and he had 


HILDRETH TO THE RESCUE 


87 


squandered at college the abundant allowance 
given him. So now, though his steerage fare and 
a tip to the steward had brought his wealth down 
to sixteen dollars, he paid for the lottery ticket. 

“I’ll take number 3333,” he decided, detaching 
it. “Three is my lucky number, for on my third 
trial I cleared the bar in the pole vault last spring, 
and beat the field.” 

Then he started out to find a hotel, and encoun- 
tered what is the common experience of the stranger 
in Panama who is not an Isthmian Canal Com- 
mission worker. Outside the commissary hotels, 
open only to these, there are but two caravansaries 
worthy of the name on the Isthmus, the Washington, 
a new hotel at the edge of Colon, with a fine view 
of the Caribbean, and the Tivoli, an American hotel 
at Ancon, but open to all, where the rates are three 
dollars and up a day for a room alone. 

Hildreth, with no knowledge of this, sauntered 
carelessly along the Avenida del Frente, gazing 
curiously at the ever changing scenes, until he came 
to the Palace Hotel, a Panamanian place. As 
usual, the rickety stairway went up from the pave- 
ment in the middle of the building; on the right 
was the bar and a cafe, and on the left the office 
and dining room, on the ground floor. An orchestra 
was playing, and Hildreth noticed that most of the 
diners were foreigners. 

The collegian stepped up to the desk, where a 
Panamanian clerk eyed him languidly and finally 
aroused himself sufficiently to inform Carvel that 


88 


THE LAST DITCH 


a room would cost him three dollars a night, silver. 
So Hildreth paid for two nights, reducing his wealth 
to ten dollars, a fact that did not worry him, as 
money with him had always been easily procured, 
and more easily wasted. 

‘‘Third floor, number 67,” said the clerk, handing 
him the key. “Just go right up ze stairway.” 

There was no elevator, bell hop, or other evidence 
of civilization, so the collegian climbed two flights 
of stairs that shook under his weight, and at last 
located his room on the third floor. The hall was 
wide and cool, extending from end to end of the 
house, and opening front and back on wide porches 
which extended around three sides of the hotel, 
as it was on a side street as well as facing on the 
Avenida del Frente. Whatever it lacked, there was 
a fine breeze blowing down the corridor. 

The room that Hildreth entered was not one 
calculated to inspire confidence or a sense of security. 
The partitions between the rooms lacked a foot of 
reaching the ceiling, the windows opened on the 
cool hallway, with the shutters closing on the frames, 
as there are no sashes in Panama. Hildreth, when 
he shut the door and tried to lock it, watched the 
lock and key fall to the floor. 

“A fine hotel!” he laughed. “All modem incon- 
veniences; no electric push buttons, no bell boys, 
nothing! The bed has n’t been made, nor the dirty 
towels taken away since the last victim left, and 
there is the private bath, a washbowl, on the floor.” 

He braced the door with a chair, and as he was 


HILDRETH TO THE RESCUE 89 


sleepy, for he had not rested well the last night on 
the Cristobal, he threw himself on the bed, knocking 
several slats to the floor, and was soon in a deep 
slumber. It was dark when he awoke, and he 
switched on the electric light hurriedly, to get his 
bearings. Then he remembered that he was in 
Panama, and as it was after seven o’clock he decided 
to see the town. 

The night was beautiful, as tropical nights are, 
with the stars shining, and a cool breeze stirring 
the palm fronds overhead. Hildreth was thrilled 
with the novelty of it all, and he walked along the 
shipping, looking at the huge liners, flying the flags 
of many nations, that poked their bows into the 
Avenida del Frente. This street has the shipping 
on one side, the shopping on the other, and the 
Panama Railroad tracks nmning through the 
middle, all of which makes it the most important 
street in Colon. 

As it was Saturday night, and the Canal Zone 
employees were paid off for the month, the street 
was crowded with Americans, who had run in from 
Culebra, Empire, Gorgona, and even from Ancon, 
across the Isthmus; the shops were filled with 
buyers, the bar rooms did a thriving business, and 
everything was running at full blast. Tiring of the 
Avenida del Frente, which he had seen fairly well, 
the collegian, in ignorance of the geography of Colon, 
walked down the Calle de Paez, and before he 
knew it he was in the worst section of the town, 
the cantina district. 


7 


90 


THE LAST DITCH 


Colon bears the unenviable reputation of being 
the second worst city in the world, with Port Said, 
on the Suez Canal, the first, though Havana might 
give either a race. There were sailors and soldiers 
thronging the streets as Hildreth walked along, 
stevedores from the liners along the docks, a lawless 
element at best, and worse than ever on Saturday 
night. Panamanian policemen, short of stature 
and comparing to a disadvantage with the mag- 
nificent Canal Zone officers, patrolled the streets, 
and Carvel remembered that Bob had said it took 
six Colon policemen to arrest an average American. 

In one cantina the disturbance seemed unusual, 
and, as in the cities of the States, there was no 
policeman near. Looking in at the open door, 
Hildreth saw an American engaged in a furious 
struggle with four natives, who were trying to down 
the plucky fighter. For a moment he hesitated, 
uncertain what to do, but the sight of a Panamanian 
drawing a knife and circling around the fracas, 
decided the collegian. 

“Keep it up, American!’* he shouted, plunging 
in. “I am with you!” 

The Panamanians hold the vigorous, hard-fighting 
Americans in awe, and the sight of Hildreth, tall 
and well built, caused the natives to release their 
hold on the American. He at once swung on one’s 
jaw, and the disturbance began anew. Hildreth, 
finding in the fray an outlet for his bitterness, 
struck out right and left with appalling effect, and 
the American got in some telling blows. 


HILDRETH TO THE RESCUE 


91 


At last came a lull in the fighting, due to the fact 
that most of the Panamanians were hors de combat; 
then the American seized Carvel and literally 
dragged him from the place, for the Panamanian 
policemen, eager for a chance to arrest an American, 
were now hurrying to the scene of turmoil. 

“Don’t let the Spiggoties get you!” panted the 
other. “They’ll chuck you into a dirty, dark jail, 
and there you will rot, for all the justice you’ll 
get. Quick, up this street!” 

When they had gone a safe distance, the American 
stopped, and Hildreth saw that he was grinning 
affably, despite the blood on his face. 

“Much obliged,” he said earnestly. “ ’Bout the 
tightest place Billy Long was ever in, and I ’ve been 
down here ten years now. Spiggoties said I cheated 
at cards, and even I did, they oughtn’t to have 
said so. I guess they would have knifed me, if 
you hadn’t come along.” 

“Come to my room at the hotel,” urged Hil- 
dreth, “and wash your wounds. The blood is 
flowing pretty fast.” 

Keeping to the street back of the Avenida del 
Frente, a deserted thoroughfare at night, they 
reached the rear of the Palace Hotel, and made 
their way to Hildreth’s room by the back stairway 
without having been seen. 


CHAPTER X 

THE “old-timer” 

“T AM what they call an ‘old-timer* here in 

A the Canal Zone,” explained Billy Long, whose 
stature belied his name, as he was short and wiry, 
with a cheerful, ever grinning countenance. “I 
came down here the first year we Americans started 
excavation, and I’ve decided to stick till the old 
ditch is full of water, and the ships are hiking across 
the Isthmus.” 

Hildreth, who was anxious to hear the adventures 
and experiences of this pioneer on the Big Job, 
cordially invited the old-timer to spend the night 
with him, which Billy accepted complacently. 
Seated on the bed, with his knees hugged up to his 
chin and his back propped against the footboard, 
the old-timer began a string of reminiscences that 
thrilled the collegian. 

“I’ve held dozens of jobs,” said Billy Long, “and 
now I am a car- wheel inspector in the machine shops 
at Gorgona, a peaceful work after some of my 
first experiences. I was on a surveying corps when 
I first got here, and we used to carry our lunches 
tied on our heads, and eat them standing waist deep 
in the water. 

“Colon and Panama were then pest holes of mud 
and disease, the mosquitoes carried yellow fever, 
92 


THE “OLD-TIMER” 


93 


and we caught the chills and ague in the jungle 
and swamps. The French had dug a little at each 
end, and a little more at Culebra Cut, and that was 
all. Their equipment was rotting along the Canal 
route, and even to-day you can find engines and 
cars, never used, ten miles in the jungle.” 

“It must have been a hard life,” remarked Hil- 
dreth. “But things are changed now, I guess.” 

“Changed!” The old-timer laughed “Well, I 
reckon so. Wait till you go across the Isthmus and 
see what the jui%le is like, then imagine everything 
like that, none of the neat towns built, the laborers 
sleeping in puddles, everything rotten with dirt. 
Now we’ll be surprised if Paradise is any more 
comfortable than the Canal Zone since Uncle Sam 
took hold.” 

To get a good idea of what has been done in the 
Canal Zone, there is no better way than to listen 
to an old-timer tell of his seven years’ work on the 
Big Ditch; he has all the fervor of the enthusiast, 
for one and all are wrapped up in the work that 
“we” are doing, and his experiences are wonderful. 
As Hildreth listened to Billy Long, he had unfolded 
before him in graphic language the coming of the 
Americans to the fever-smitten jungle, the mar- 
velous sanitation enforced by Colonel Gorgas, and 
the cleaning of Panama City and Colon. 

He heard how the yellow fever was driven out 
entirely, how mosquitoes were totally exterminated, 
and how, before a single shovel of dirt was taken 
out, all these preparations were completed, including 


94 


THE LAST DITCH 


the building of employees* houses. As he sat, 
thrilled by the old-timer’s talk, he understood that 
the magnitude of the Panama Canal work does not 
consist alone in the ditch itself; that the building, 
tearing down, and moving of whole towns, the insti- 
tuting of schools, churches, police stations, fire 
departments, and Young Men’s Christian Asso- 
ciation clubhouses, is fully as great a task. 

He was told how the United States built commis- 
sary stores and hotels, where for thirty cents a 
fine meal could be had by employees of the Isthmian 
Canal Commission; he learned to his wonder that 
there were sports in the Canal Zone, baseball, 
tennis, and big track meets, held by the Y. M. C. A.’s 
of the different towns, that scores of college and 
university men were down there, and that any 
entertainment is seized on and carried to success 
because it is a relief from the monotony of work. 

“The second year I was here,” ruminated Billy, 
his bronzed face puckered in thought, “ I got a job 
as employment agent, with my station down on 
the island of St. Thomas, in the Barbadoes Islands. 
The I. C. C. had tried every kind of labor; the Pan- 
amanians were too lazy, the Hindus and Chinese 
so stupid they would get blown to the sky every 
time a dynamite blast went off, and none suited till 
we got the Barbadoes niggers; then we went ahead. 
I used to bring a shipload of them up to Colon every 
once in a while, but I soon got tired of chaperoning 
the cargoes of ‘black ivory.’ 

“Then I came back to Panama, and I’ve been 


THE “OLD-TIMER 


95 


time keeper, commissary clerk, steam-shovel fire- 
man, and I don’t know what else. I’ve seen the 
work grow from year to year, the steam shovels 
fighting for the monthly record, the locks growing 
bigger, and the Cut gashing the Cordilleras. Now 
it’s nearly done; a few more tons of concrete in the 
locks, the finishing of Culebra Cut, and we go home.” 

He was silent for a moment, then he regarded Hil- 
dreth quizzically. 

“What’s that shindig they have at college?” he 
demanded. “You know, when the fellows get their 
rolls of paper and pull up stakes for good?” 

“Commencement?” suggested Hildreth, with a 
pang as he thought of Ballard. 

“That’s it!” chuckled Billy. “Well, somehow, 
down here in the Canal Zone reminds me of a Com- 
mencement; when I first came there was a jolly 
bunch of us, but where are they now? Some down 
in South America, some trying to get rich off the 
land in Panama, others in Australia, and some dead! 
The government cleaned up the Zone so that all 
the crooks had to go. 

“You see, friend, in the wake of every great enter- 
prise, as well as ahead of it, there follows a gang of 
crooks, cutthroats, and thieves. So it was with 
the Panama Canal; most of these saloons and 
gambling dens are run by Americans who came 
down here to make money off the I. C. C. em- 
ployees. But the place is clean now, and since the 
Presidente of Panama banned poker playing, it is 
about the end.” 


96 


THE LAST DITCH 


“But there are other sports,” said Carvel. “Bull 
fighting?” 

“Right!” grinned the old timer. “Go out to the 
Plaza del Toros to-morrow afternoon and see it, and 
watch how the Spiggoties and Americans bet money. 
Oh, you will find that Sunday down here is the worst 
day of all; sometimes I feel like it will be a relief 
to enjoy a quiet day in the States, hearing the 
church bells again. But go to the window there 
and listen — ” 

Hildreth crossed to the window that opened on a 
side street, and to his ears there came a wild commo- 
tion of sounds; from the many cafes he heard the 
riot of voices, the tinkle of glasses, and the scraping 
of chairs. There were guitars twanging, a woman 
singing, and at intervals, above it all, applause, 
shouts and yells of encouragement. 

“That’s a cock main,” smiled the old-timer, 
“another great thing down in this sun-blazed, rain- 
soaked, tropical land. Just remember this, any- 
thing to create excitement and relieve the monotony 
is permitted here, where there are no theaters or 
amusements. Wait till you see the crowds at the 
baseball games and the track meets, and see how the 
men bet on each turn of the game! And there are 
some mighty fast nmners here, from the big colleges 
in the States!” 

“A track meet down here!” marveled Hildreth. 
“ Why, up north they are in the football season now.” 

“There’s to be a big track meet at Cristobal, on 
Roosevelt Avenue, in a week or so,” affirmed Billy. 


THE “OLD-TIMER” 


97 


“All the Y. M. C. A. clubs will compete; last month 
Empire won, but we Gorgona chaps are going to romp 
off with it. If you have any speed, friend, you can 
easily get in the running, if you are an I. C. C. 
worker.” 

“I have sprinted some at college,” answered 
Hildreth. Then, as a sudden inspiration seized 
him, “Do you know a fellow named Bob Bayliss, 
whose father is an official somewhere in the Canal 
Zone? He works at — I can’t remember the town 
he named.” 

“Do I know Bob Bayliss!” roared Billy Long. 
“Say, ask me if I know Colonel Goethals, or Teddy 
Roosevelt! Why, his father got me this job at 
Gorgona, after I got tired of quarrying rock down at 
Porto Bello, where we had to take a rotten tug trip 
every time we wanted to see Colon. He lives at 
Culebra, and he is a time keeper in the Cut.” 

“Culebra!” exclaimed Hildreth. “That’s the 
town! I’ll go there to-morrow and find him; 
he came down on the Cristobal, as I did, and 
promised to get me work here.” 

“His Dad will do it, too,” reassured the old- 
timer, “but it’s good that you have the pull with 
an official, for the I. C. C. is laying off men by the 
hundreds, now that we have nearly finished. Where 
we had thirty-five thousand at work, there will be a 
permanent force of one thousand, when the Canal 
is done. Well, I am tired after that scrap, and as 
I ’ve got to catch the five o’clock train to Gorgona, 
I ’ll go to sleep.” ' 


98 


THE LAST DITCH 


He turned over calmly and went to sleep, but 
Hildreth, after he had switched off the light and 
stretched out on the bed beside him, was afraid to 
trust himself to slumber. He placed his money 
under the pillow, but neglected to take the lottery 
ticket from his coat pocket, and the garment hung 
on a chair at the foot of the bed. 

A thousand different thoughts crowded to mind, 
now that he had time for quiet thought for the 
first time since leaving New York. It was only at 
such moments as this that the old bitterness came 
back to him, and he felt the utter loneliness of this 
new experience — this making a man of himself, as 
he called it. He realized more and more that what 
his father and Neva had said was true; he could 
never make good so long as that unfought battle 
remained back at Ballard. 

The last thing he thought about before he fell 
asleep, with the cool tropical breeze blowing in, and 
the twanging of a banjo, mingled with the soft 
patois of a voice singing a Spanish melody, was his 
companion, snoring away at his side. He was 
gripped by the wonderful experiences that this 
pioneer had related to him that night, from the very 
start of the stupendous work down to the nearing 
of the end. 

Gradually the spell of the Big Job was seizing 
him, though as yet he had seen nothing of the Canal, 
and he looked forward with eagerness to the time 
when he would find Bayliss, and go to work, helping 
his country to make good. Dimly he understood 


THE “OLD-TIMER 


99 


that the task had cemented the workers with bonds 
of loyalty to their nation, and that in toiling for the 
Commission they had been made better Americans. 

Then, soothed by the breeze and the medley of 
noises from the streets of wide-awake Colon, Hildreth 
fell asleep. 

It was bright daylight when he awoke, and for a 
wonder the sun was shining. From the distance he 
heard a clock striking, and to his amazement, it 
was eleven! He remembered that it was Sunday, 
but as Billy Long had stated, it was the worst day 
of all in Panama, judging from the noise in Colon. 
Then he thought of his night’s “bunkie” and turn- 
ing, he saw that in the early hours of the dawn 
the old-timer had stolen away. 

And that was not all he had stolen, for an inventory 
of the pillow and his clothing showed the horrified 
Hildreth that he had taken, along with his departure. 
Carvel’s gold watch and all the money but a five- 
dollar bill. The collegian was puzzled at first to 
know why the old-timer had left it, and was about 
to ascribe it to sentiment — when he reflected that 
it had been in a fold of the pillow and was probably 
overlooked. The lottery ticket was untouched, for 
nine years in Panama had taught Billy Long the 
futility of hope. 

“ ‘ In the wake of every great enterprise,’ ” quoted 
Hildreth sadly, “‘there follows a gang of crooks, 
thieves, and so forth!’ Billy, you spoke rightly, 
but you were in error in stating that the Canal Zone 
had been cleaned, for you are here!’* 


100 


THE LAST DITCH 


The collegian was not as panic stricken now as he 
would have been, for he was sure the five dollars 
would take him to Culebra, and Billy Long had at 
least informed him where Bayliss could be found. 
He had paid six dollars and a valuable gold watch 
for the knowledge, and for the pleasure of hearing the 
old-timer talk, but he was not cast down. 

“ ril drop into the station,” he said, after dressing, 
“and see what the fare to Culebra is, for I want 
something to eat if there is any money left.” 

It was too early in the day for much excitement, 
but crowds were sauntering up and down the 
Avenida del Frente, the Canal Zone carriages were 
clanging past at intervals, and the shops were doing 
a thriving business. There were plenty of Ameri- 
cans on the street, and white women in the carriages, 
as they seldom go afoot outside the government 
corrals. 

Consulting the timetable in the station, he found 
that the round trip to Panama City and return was 
five dollars, gold, the exact amount he possessed, 
and that the next train left at twenty minutes past 
two. 

“I’ll wait until to-morrow,” he decided. “I 
don’t know when I shall have a chance to see 
Colon again after starting to work, so I’ll see it 
well.” 

After a short walk he entered Roosevelt Avenue, 
and followed the water around to the De Lesseps 
house on the promontory near the Cristobal docks. 
He saw the breakwater, the huge terminals being 


THE “OLD-TIMER” 


101 


built at the end of the Canal, the great warehouses 
and plants of the Commission, and he marveled at 
the completeness of the work that covered every 
possible detail. 

‘ ‘ Why, they have created a new nation down here ! ’ ’ 
he breathed. “There are entire towns built, with 
all the attributes of a city in the States; there is 
a railroad, with machine shops, and an ice plant! 
All we need is an army and a navy, and we could whip 
any Central or South American republic!” 

Hildreth was getting thrilled with the Big Job; 
a few weeks of hard work, and he would be as 
enthusiastic as any of the young fellows, clad in 
flannels, that he found at the Cristobal Y. M. C. A. 
a few minutes later, when he walked up Broad 
Street and entered the clubhouse. 

“I wonder what number wins this week?” spec- 
ulated one. “ I never got a thing yet, though I have 
faithfully contributed my dollar and a quarter each 
week to the lottery.” 

“In Nicaragua once,” commented another of the 
group, which was sipping drinks from the Y. M. C. A. 
soft-drink bar, a blessing to temperance Canal 
workers, “I pulled down five hundred dollars. I’d 
like to land the first prize here before I am laid off; 
it would top my savings beautifully.” 

“Right!” was the chorus. “Seven thousand 
dollars is worth having.” 

Hildreth gasped. Seven thousand dollars in gold, 
in good American coin! It was not the amount that 
impressed the collegian, for his father being rich. 


102 


THE LAST DITCH 


he was accustomed to hearing of larger sums, but 
at that time, in his state of poverty, down to five 
dollars and facing starvation, unless Bayliss were 
found, it was a fortune. If he should win — 

“I would go back to the States like a millionaire,” 
he imagined. ‘T’d see this old ditch from end to 
end first, put up at the Tivoli and be a sport, then 
travel first class to New York, enter a college, and 
graduate. I ’d show Dad and the rest a few things ! ’ ’ 

He started back to the Palace, as he had paid for 
another night, and on the way he passed the branch 
office of the Panama lottery; Bayliss had said that 
the winning number each week was posted on Sun- 
day, and as he neared the wooden building on the 
Avenida del Frente he glanced at the electric-light 
arrangement that would blazon out the number when 
darkness came. 

His heart leaped madly, and for a moment he stood 
still ; then his hand went to his inside coat pocket and 
drew out the pink pasteboard slip that Billy I^ng 
had neglected to take with him. The number on 
the ticket was 3333; Hildreth hardly dared to look 
up, but when he raised his eyes, that on the sign of 
the Lotterie de Panama, in the electric frame, was 
3333! 


CHAPTER XI 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 

"C^OR an instant Carvel Hildreth was too over- 
whelmed by this great good fortune to realize 
what it meant to him. A moment before he had 
but five dollars in his possession, and actual star- 
vation had stared him in the face, in the event of 
a failure to find Bayliss; now, the pink bit of 
pasteboard in his hand, bearing the magic number 
3333, was as good as a check for fifteen thousand 
Spiggoty dollars, or seven thousand five hundred in 
American currency! 

Gradually it dawned on him that he did not have 
to find work in the Canal Zone, that his father's 
casting him off did not matter now, since he had 
several thousand dollars. What a fine time he 
would have back in the States, finishing the year 
at Hamilton, or some other college than Ballard! 
He would enjoy this lottery prize to the full. 

As it was Sunday, he decided to take the afternoon 
train across to Panama City, so as to present his 
number at the lottery office the first thing on 
Monday morning; the Panamanians were a treach- 
erous set, and he would feel better when the prize 
money was in his possession. Two dollars and a 
half, gold, would buy him a ticket across the Isthmus, 
and the rest would put him up at a cheap hotel 
103 


104 


THE LAST DITCH 


for the night, leaving him a trifle for food. Elated, 
with every vestige of the bitterness that had been 
his since leaving college erased by his luck, he 
hurried toward the Palace, to get his suitcase. 

“Seven thousand dollars ! ” he breathed. “ Won’t 
I have a good time? I ’ll travel this ditch from end 
to end. I’ll sail back to New York de luxe, and I’ll 
have my fling at some college until June. I guess 
I’ll show Dad that my being thrown on my own 
resources did n’t make me lose out!” 

In the natural exhilaration at having the money, 
Hildreth did not pause to consider that since it 
had been won through pure luck, and not by any 
worthy effort of his, it was far from representing 
success in anything. Instead of his going toward 
making good, this money would put him back in 
his old reckless life, and he would lose what little 
ground he had gained, or the manhood that might 
have been his through hard work. 

By this lottery prize, all his father’s desperate 
measures, which had almost broken the banker’s 
heart to adhere to, were put at naught. Mr. Hil- 
dreth had first declared that Carvel must make his 
own way at college, in the hope that this would 
sober his son, and make him depend on himself; 
later, he had disowned him because he would not 
go back to Ballard, hoping that rude contact with 
life would make the collegian see he was wrong, so 
he would return. Now, with seven thousand 
dollars, there was small chance that Hildreth would 
win to manhood. 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


105 


In that hour, all his former good resolutions were 
forgotten; he threw aside all memory of the shame 
and sorrow he had caused his father by his failure; 
he did not think of the telegram that he had sent 
before the football game; all he saw was the pink 
slip in his fingers, and glorious visions of the hilarious 
times he would have back in the States with his 
fortune. 

Reaching his room, he seized his suitcase and 
hurried down the rickety staircase, striding toward 
the station, and brushing aside angry little Panaman- 
ians as he hastened to catch the two-twenty train 
for Panama City. The street was filled with an 
indolent crowd, the cafes ran at full blast, and 
Colon was getting ready for Sunday night, but 
Hildreth did not care. 

“One way to Panama City,” said Hildreth, at the 
first-class ticket office. “What time shall I get 
there?” 

“The running time is about two hours,” said the 
American agent. “About half-past four. Two- 
fifty, gold.” 

With two dollars and a half in his possession, 
Hildreth went through the turnstile and boarded 
one of the yellow cars of the Panama Railroad train; 
he admired the clean rattan seats, placed crosswise 
in the first-class compartments, and lengthwise in 
the cars of the second-class passengers. The train 
crew was composed of Americans, and as the train 
pulled out of the station shed and rattled along the 
Avenida del Frente, on past Cristobal, Hildreth 


8 


106 


THE LAST DITCH 


settled back for a thorough enjoyment of his trip 
across the Isthmus, for now that he was the winner 
of the lottery he was at peace with the world. 

Back in the second-class car he could see a strange 
gathering of nationalities; the giant Barbadoes 
negroes, those from the West Indies, gesticulating 
Italians, and sullen Spaniards; there were women 
from the ill-fated island of Martinique (where Mt. 
Pelee spread devastation some years ago), with 
turbans on their heads; there were Hindu coolies 
with their heads bound, almond-eyed Chinese, and 
vociferous Panamanian peons. 

In Carvel’s car there were the aristocratic Pana- 
manians, the women resembling the Spanish, only 
darker, and the men graceful and indolent in speech 
and in action. Almost all of the passengers were 
Americans, however, for the Canal Zone is like a big 
community, and they travel all over it at will. 
There were the well-dressed officials of the admin- 
istration, handsome American women, and stalwart 
young chaps in yellow shirts, khaki trousers, and 
puttees, on their way to work for the next day. 

As the train sped past the end of the Colon ship- 
ping, where there is a stretch of open beach, Hildreth 
saw several long canoes, laden with coconuts and 
tropical fruits, nosing the white sand, and what 
seemed to be Indians wading ashore. 

“They are San Bias Indians,” said an American 
beside him, noticing his amazed look. “They are 
remarkable as the sole tribe that has kept its race 
blood pure, from the time Balboa crossed the 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


107 


Isthmus, through the Spanish invasion, and the 
French work, to the present. All other tribes have 
intermarried with all nationalities, but the San Bias 
women cannot even be spoken to. It is a rule of 
the tribe that no child born of a foreign father shall 
live, and the mother is punished.” 

The train went through Monkey Hill, Lion Hill, 
Tiger Hill, and Corozal, which means “merry-go- 
round,” and crossed from Manzanillo Island to the 
mainland of the Isthmus. The collegian, as he 
gazed at the evidences of what had been done in 
the Canal Zone, where the jungle had been beaten 
back step by step, the marshes cleared and drained, 
and roads built from town to town, marveled at the 
wonderful efficiency of Colonel Goethals, the head 
of the administration. Oil barrels stood here and 
there, humble monuments to the sanitation of 
Colonel Gorgas, who had driven malaria and yellow 
fever from the Zone. 

But farther on, as the train left the Canal, at times 
the tracks ran through sheer jungle, and Hildreth 
drew a deep breath as the impenetrable walls of 
green arose on either side, with their strange birds, 
rare flowers and fruit, and the most brilliant foliage. 
As he gazed at the tall trees, with their roots in 
marsh and water, with tangled vines and under- 
growth enmeshed with the plants and bushes, he 
got an idea of what the pioneers who surveyed the 
Panama Railroad route back in 1850 had had to 
endure. And they were Americans, too! 

“Gatun! Gatun!” the conductor shouted, and 


108 


THE LAST DITCH 


the first big point along the Canal was reached, 
though the station is too far away for a clear view 
of the dam and locks to be had. Still, the collegian 
gasped as the outlines of the enormous concrete 
walls, surmounted with giant berm cranes, loomed 
up; he could see the dam that had been built to stem 
the roaring Chagres River, and to form an artificial 
lake of a hundred and fifty square miles. Then 
he began to grasp in a measure the stupendous 
achievements of modem engineering. 

“From the Atlantic entrance at Colon,” said the 
American at his side, for Canal workers never lose 
a chance to enthuse over the work, “the ships sail 
seven miles to Gatun, where they pass through the 
three locks yonder and into Gatun Lake, the man- 
made body of water; sailing twenty-three miles 
across it, they reach Culebra Cut, a nine-mile gash 
through the mountains of the Cordilleras, and after 
steaming through it, they reach the locks at Pedro 
Miguel, then a short way to Miraflores Lake and 
locks, after which it is only seven miles to the Pacific 
entrance.” 

“Then it isn’t really a canal,” said Hildreth; 
“that is, I expected to see an even affair, probably 
lined with concrete on each side, extending straight 
across from ocean to ocean.” 

“The Canal is a surprise to many,” agreed the 
American. “It really consists, as you heard, of a 
few miles of canal at each end, an artificial lake, and 
a natural lake, all joined together. At places the 
water will spread out for miles, and the Canal will 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


109 


be marked out by buoys, while at others, as in 
Culebra Cut, it is narrow.” 

“It is wonderful, even at that!” answered Hil- 
dreth, and his companion was satisfied. 

For twenty-three miles after leaving Gatim the 
train passed through country that would be under 
water when Gatun Lake was filled, and many native 
villages years old would be erased from the map, 
literally. As they passed Ahorca Lagarto, Hil- 
dreth remarked on the immensity of a project that 
thought nothing of wiping out villages. 

“That is a small item,” laughed the American, 
a civil engineer who was relocating the Panama 
Railroad. “As a writer on Panama aptly says, 
‘We Americans dropped down into the heart of a 
jungle of unequaled denseness, built a young moun- 
tain — meaning Gatun dam — balanced a lake of a 
hundred and fifty square miles on top of the con- 
tinental divide — Gatun Lake — gouged out a canon 
ten miles long, three hundred feet wide, and two 
hundred and fifty feet deep — Culebra Cut!' ” 

At points where the Canal was neared, numberless 
tracks ran off into the jungle, and there were cars 
of rock, or loaded with dirt, which the engineer 
explained would be taken from Culebra Cut to build 
up good land in the marshes. At times the feeble 
scars of the French digging were seen, in places 
overgrown with the jungle that had claimed its 
own again. 

The next point of interest on the trip, besides the 
jungle, which fascinated Hildreth, was Gorgona, 


no 


THE LAST DITCH 


where the large roundhouses and repair shops of the 
two railroad systems, the Panama, and the Canal 
work, are located; there were scores of hissing 
engines on the tracks, long rows of flat excavation 
cars, cranes, steam shovels, and apparatus, hauled 
in for repairing. To Hildreth it looked like the 
railroad yards of a great city in the States, and 
again he thrilled with the completeness at which 
a nation had reproduced itself in the jungle of 
Panama. 

Empire, an important Canal Zone town, looked 
to the collegian just like a country village along a 
railroad in the States, though the bungalow effect of 
the houses, and the palm trees near them, destroyed 
the resemblance somewhat. The crowds that 
alighted from the cars or boarded them, or met 
friends at the station, were for all the world like 
the families of suburban commuters, meeting hus- 
bands and fathers; there were girls and little chil- 
dren, just as in the country Hildreth had left. To 
put on the finishing touch, the word “Empire” 
was formed on a bank in letters of flowers. 

Everything, even the lottery prize, was forgotten 
by Hildreth as he rode across the Isthmus of Panama, 
and when, between Gorgona and Empire, he caught 
his first glimpse of the Culebra Cut, where prac- 
tically all of the work, besides that of the three lock 
stations, was being concentrated on the finish, he 
was breathless. He could see, far down the gash 
through the hill, endless tracks, crossing and recross- 
ing, rows of excavation trains, and big steam shovels, 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


111 


all at rest, but ready for the morning’s work. On 
each side of the Cut the banks were red, as though 
still bleeding from the lacerations of the busy Canal 
diggers. 

“I must see it when they are at work,” he told 
himself, as a curve shut off the view of the great 
Cut. “It is wonderful, well worth a trip down here 
to see, just to find out what a great nation is ours ! ” 

It was not yet dark when the train pulled into 
the station at Panama City, and Hildreth, as he 
alighted, stared at the brick houses that met his 
gaze; he had grown used to Colon, with its endless 
frame buildings, frail and insecure, with their pro- 
jecting porches, and he was amazed when he saw a 
city like those in the States, with paved streets and 
wide sidewalks. 

“A good hotel?” an American he accosted an- 
swered. “Well, if you have the price, there is the 
Tivoli, across the bridge yonder, in Ancon; you will 
find the Panazone, in the Plaza del Central, Panama 
City, about as good as any Spiggoty, I guess.” 

There was the Hotel Mexico across the street, 
diagonally from the railroad station, but Hildreth 
sauntered up the Calle del Central, looking curiously 
at the quaint shops that border it, and noticing that 
the number of Americans on the streets was much 
less than in Colon. The Panamanians he addressed 
to ask the ,way were not so fluent in English, but 
he finally reached the Panazone, on the beautiful 
Plaza del Central, and secured a room for the night, 
paying two dollars. 


112 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Fifty cents for supper!” he laughed. “Then 
to-morrow, seven thousand dollars to spend! I 
guess I can stand one night of poverty for that!” 

The room was much better than the one he had 
occupied at the Palace in Colon, where Billy Long 
had taken most of his money when he left, and the 
accommodations were far superior, though behind 
those of hotels in the States. Coming down into 
the lobby, Hildreth discovered that he was hungry, 
and decided to go out to a restaurant to eat, investing 
his last cent for a good supper, so he finally landed 
in the dining room of the Hotel Mexico, where a 
meal was advertised for a dollar, silver. 

The salt was like paste, the butter had melted, 
and the food was far from appetizing, but Hildreth 
managed to make a good meal, as he was in fine 
spirits. Then, without a cent, but with the precious 
pink lottery ticket in his pocket, he strolled through 
the city, gazing out from the Sea Wall, seeing Balboa 
on his right, where the West Coast steamers land 
and the Pacific entrance to the Canal is located. 
Farther out, the blue Pacific stretched away in the 
distance, while back of the city Ancon Hill, whence 
a view of two oceans at once may be had, reared its 
majestic height. 

He stopped in Cathedral Square to gaze at the 
ancient cathedral, with its twin spires decorated 
with pearl shells that gleamed like fire in the last 
rays of the setting sun. Then, tired by the excite- 
ment of his trip, Hildreth read in the reading room 
of the Panazone for an hour or so, and at last went 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


113 


to bed; this time the door of his room could be 
locked, so he had no fear that he would be robbed 
of his lottery ticket. He went to sleep, to dream 
of what he would do with the prize money back in 
the States, and of the larks he would have at college. 

He slept late, and when he awoke the rain was 
falling in torrents. When it rains in Panama, 
which it does frequently, it does not hesitate to do 
so with all its might, and while it lasts it is exceed- 
ingly discomforting. Hildreth was depressed at 
the way the water fell, splattering up from the 
paved streets below; but he took out the lottery 
ticket and looked at it, and the sight cheered him. 

After an hour the weather cleared, the sun blazed 
down fiercely, and Hildreth started out to cash his 
winning ticket. He found the office on the ground 
floor of the Episcopal Palace, for the place is rented 
from the Bishop of Panama. As he entered, a 
smiling Panamanian clerk with a pen behind his 
ear came forward, and Hildreth advanced to the 
coimter. 

“First prize!” announced the collegian proudly, 
tossing the pink ticket down with a careless air 
before the little Panamanian. ‘ ‘ Number 3333 ! I’ll 
take the money right along with me, please.” 

There was an awkward silence, for instead of 
betraying any joy or other emotion at Hildreth’s 
words, the clerk was staring at the ticket and then 
at Hildreth, as though convinced the American had 
gone crazy from exposure to the tropical sun. 

“Ze — ze first prize of ze lotterie! ” explained the 


114 


THE LAST DITCH 


Ballard chap, under the delusion that the clerk 
spoke no English, though just how this jargon would 
convey intelligence in that case was hard to say. 
“See, ze numbaire on ze — ” 

He dropped his already broken English suddenly, 
for the petrified clerk was pointing at a number 
posted on the wall. For a moment Hildreth gazed 
at it in a dazed sort of manner, then it began to 
dawn on him slowly that the figures made up the 
number — 3456! 

“Ze lucky gentleman, Meester Armendaros, got 
hees prize dis morning,” stated the puzzled clerk. 
“Ze numbaire on ze wall, 3456, wins the lottery. 
What makes you think you haf won eet?” 

“In Colon yesterday at noon,” faltered Hildreth, 
“I was passing the branch office and I saw the 
number 3333 posted; I had been told that the 
winning number is put up each Sunday, so that 
the people can see who — ” 

“Eet ees true,” interposed the clerk, “but eet ees 
Sunday night when ze numbaire ees posted! Ze 
drawing takes place in Panama City in ze afternoon! 
Let me see — ze numbaire winning ze beeg prize 
last week was — 3333!” 

“Then it was last week’s number still posted!” 
Hildreth groaned. “I saw it and thought that I 
had the winning ticket. It was noi until last night 
that I could have seen the number that won for 
this week just ended yesterday!” 

Crushed by this last blow, after the loss of his 
money by the old-timer’s theft, the collegian turned 


THE LOTTERY OF LIFE 


115 


slowly away, while the Panamanian clerk, who was 
glad that a “native son” had won the big prize that 
week instead of a “gringo,” grinned pleasantly into 
a mirror on the wall. In desperation and despair, 
Hildreth walked out into the Plaza; he had not one 
cent in his possession, and his dreams of the seven 
thousand dollars had been broken to fragments! 

It was a cruel and bitter hour for Carvel Hildreth. 
The rain was pouring again in a steady, dismal 
sheet, the dampness reeked from the foliage, and a 
fog arose from the paved streets, the palms of the 
Plaza drooped gloomily, and the little Spiggoty 
policeman sought his sentry box for shelter. Every- 
thing had grown dark for the collegian, and as he 
wandered aimlessly in the rain, he was muttering 
wildly: 

“The last ditch! I thought I was at the last 
ditch when I sent my father that telegram from 
Ballard, but now — ” 

Blind with rage and disappointment, not seeing 
or caring where he went, he rushed against some one 
who was hurrying past with head bent to keep 
the rain out of his face. He heard an exclamation 
of anger, changing to one of surprise, and he felt 
his arm seized excitedly. 

“Hildreth! What are you doing here in Panama 
City? How did you lose me on the special Saturday? 
Old man, I am glad I have found you at last!” 

Looking up, Hildreth saw that it was Bob Bayliss. 


Part III 


CHAPTER XII 

THE OLD BITTERNESS 

I T HAD been two days since Hildreth was sepa- 
rated from his friends on the crowded pier at 
Cristobal, yet it had seemed like a century, and his 
gladness as he shook hands with Bayliss was heart- 
felt. It was a strange meeting, under the dripping 
palms of the Plaza, and the little Spiggoty police- 
man, eying the scene from his sentry box, wondered 
if he ought to arrest the young Americans for riot, 
as Bob was thumping Hildreth on the back in a 
way that convinced Carvel effectually of Bayliss’ 
friendship. 

“I have scoured the Canal Zone for you, old 
chum!” cried Bob. “I don’t go to work until 
to-morrow, so this morning I took the first train 
here, as I had been all over Colon, determined to 
find you. Coming is at work now. Dad got him 
a job as ‘flannel-foot’ in the Pacific Division, so he 
will live with us over in Culebra.” 

‘‘A flannel-foot!” repeated Hildreth, puzzled. 
“What is that. Bob?” 

“ A detective — a sleuth,” grinned Bayliss. “ You 
see. Carvel, here in the Canal Zone, while there is no 
big graft, there are countless chances for employees 
116 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


117 


to make money on the side; a time keeper, like 
myself, could issue extra time checks to a laborer, 
and by a previous agreement receive half when they 
were cashed. The I. C. C. has a detective force to 
watch for such things, and Corning has a job. The 
flannel-foot is far from popular down here, of course, 
but a necessity.” 

Hildreth’s relief at having found his only friend 
in Panama was so great that he had quite forgotten 
the rain, but Bayliss suddenly shook his raincoat, 
and waved the drops from his hat. 

"‘Let’s get out of this young flood,” he said with 
a laugh. “Dad’s over at the University Club, and 
I ’ll introduce you, old man. You had better take 
whatever job he can offer you, for, believe me, 
they are few and far between now in the Canal 
Zone.” 

“I’ll be thankful to get anything,” avowed 
Hildreth earnestly, “for I haven’t a cent in the 
world,. Bob. Half an hour ago I thought I possessed 
seven thousand dollars, but it was all a myth.” 

As they hurried through the Plaza to the Uni- 
versity Club, which fronts on the beautiful square, 
Hildreth hurriedly outlined to his chum the sorrowful 
history of the lottery ticket; Bayliss, while he sym- 
pathized with him on his loss, was wondering to 
himself if, after all, it had not been for the best. 
Now, he had a chance to make a man of himself 
by hard work, but with seven thousand — 

In a few minutes Hildreth was comfortably 
ensconced in a big leather chair in the lounging room 


118 


THE LAST DITCH 


of the University Club, while Bayliss went in search 
of his father, an official of the Pacific Division of 
the I. C. C. administration. There was a mixed 
crowd in the room; steam-shovel drivers from the 
Cut, concrete mixers from Gatun, Miraflores, and 
Pedro Miguel, members of the dynamite squad that 
blew up the hills for the steam shovels to nose away 
into flat cars, engineers of the excavation trains, 
time keepers, surveyors, men from all the phases 
of the Big Job. 

Everywhere the Canal was the topic, as over in 
Cristobal; the number of cubic yards that such a 
steam shovel had dug so far that month was re- 
marked, the amount of concrete poured into the 
walls of the duplicate locks at Gatun, the great 
slide that had threatened to engulf the town of 
Culebra in the abysmal gorge below, all fascinated 
Hildreth. He was soon to be plunged into this big 
work, to be one of the army that was bending brain 
and muscle to its accomplishment! 

He saw Bayliss enter, accompanied by a tall, 
bronzed gentleman in white flannels, wearing that 
earnest, thoughtful air of the Canal workers, and 
he decided it was Bob’s father, the Isthmian Canal 
Commission official. He was sure that his friend 
was telling of Hildreth’s need of a job in Panama, 
and that they were consulting over what would 
be the best job for the collegian, and, on Bob’s part, 
the easiest. 

The collegian would have been amazed had he 
heard what was said by his friend of the Cristobal; 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


119 


Bayliss knew the story of the football game and 
what had followed; he saw clearly that Hildreth 
was passing a crisis in his life, and that only stem 
measures could save him from his weaker self. 
The affair of the lottery ticket had been a narrow 
escape for Carvel, and Bob shuddered as he thought 
of what would have been had the winning number 
for that week been 3333. 

Bayliss understood, with Mr. Hildreth and Neva 
Barton, that the one hope of making Hildreth worth 
while was to make him return to Ballard, even 
though it would be to face the same bitter scorn and 
ostracism from which he had fled. Hildreth’s life 
had been one of luxurious ease, and he had never 
worked to earn a dollar; nothing but the hardest 
kind of physical labor could impress the reckless 
collegian with manliness and self-reliance, with the 
courage to face anything and not flinch. 

“ I might give him a position as clerk in the police 
station at Gorgona,” said Mr. Bayliss reflectively. 
“Young Casey left to-day for the States, and we 
need a new fellow at once. If this Hildreth can do 
office work — “ 

“Don’t give him so easy a place, Dad!’* Bob 
interposed earnestly. “Can’t you see, he has got to 
buckle down to work, he must sweat and ache all 
over! Give him the hardest physical job in the 
Zone, make him do the work of the Barbadoes 
negroes! He is in good shape and can stand it; if 
he sticks, I can get him back to college; but if he 
fails, there is no hope for him.” 


120 


THE LAST DITCH 


Mr. Bayliss had been intensely interested in the 
story of Hildreth’s moral cowardice, told to him in 
the strictest confidence by his son, and he looked 
over at the athletic young collegian who had been 
shunned by his friends for what they believed the 
yellow streak, and disowned by his father for his 
refusal to go back to Ballard. Here was a tall, 
clean-cut chap, splendidly built, with an attractive 
face, yet one that showed he had been used to having 
what he wanted. 

Work on the Big Job had enabled Mr. Bayliss to 
study others, and he understood the condition of this 
young fellow at once; here was a collegian who gave 
his body, while suffering torture, to his eleven, and 
yet who lacked the will power to go back to endure 
mental anguish! 

“Bob is right,” he decided. “In view of what 
he has told me, the hardest kind of physical labor 
alone can make a man of him. If he sticks to it 
for a day, and the next morning, stiff and sore, 
gets up and goes at it again, then there is hope. It 
is the supreme test for him, and I ’ll try to save the 
fellow.” 

“ I ’ll introduce him. Dad,” said Bob. “ Remem- 
ber, not a word to remind him of the past, and don’t 
let him know that we are working to help him. But 
whatever you do, make him sweat!” 

In response to his call, Hildreth walked over to 
where the Commission official and his son were 
standing by the door; Bob introduced them, and 
Carvel felt the firm, strong handclasp of this bronzed. 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


121 


earnest looking man, who studied the young collegian 
without seeming to do so. 

“You have sought Panama at the worst time for 
work,” said Mr. Bayliss, in perfect truth. “Had 
you come down three years ago, you might have 
done well, but with the Commission reducing the 
force from thirty-five thousand to one thousand, 
you can see that there is a poor choice. Are you 
afraid of hard work?” 

“ I have never done any work,” confessed Hildreth, 
“but I am in training, having come from the foot- 
ball field, and I believe I can stand it.” 

“If you need work badly,” continued Mr. Bayliss, 
“and are willing to grit your teeth and stick, I can 
put you on the crew of steam shovel 33, which is 
now working at the bottom of the fresh slide at 
Culebra Cut; you will have to shovel coal like a 
stoker, and that is not easy. If you are ready to 
work to-morrow, the job is yours; sixty a month, 
gold, and ‘ bachelor ’ quarters at Culebra. It is work 
usually handled by Barbadoes negroes, but it means 
a living for you, until the force is cut to almost 
nothing.” 

“And believe me,” laughed Bob, “you will have 
to shovel like a Turk! Shovel 25 is eating at the 
top of the slide, and the two are going neck and neck 
for this month’s excavation record; to make it 
worse. Bill Rosslyn, the 33 craneman, is from Yale, 
and 25’s craneman is from Harvard! Maybe there 
is n’t a rivalry, too!” 

Hildreth was unaware that there was a position 


9 


122 


THE LAST DITCH 


as clerk which he might have had, if Bob had not 
been determined he should work out his own salva- 
tion and manhood by the sweat of his brow. He 
dreaded the daily toil and hated the thought of 
laboring where Barbadoes negroes usually toiled, but 
the memory of the previous hour came to him, when 
he had stood, penniless and wet, in the Plaza del 
Central, and he knew there was a choice between 
shoveling coal and starving. 

“ni take the job, Mr. Bayliss,” he said at last, 
“and I thank you for letting me have it, for I was 
in a bad fix when Bob found me. I am ready to go 
to work any time you say.” 

“You and Bob can run out to Culebra this after- 
noon,” decided Mr. Bayliss. “I have business in 
Ancon, but will come home on the night train and 
fix matters up for you. Bob, get him working togs 
and a commissary book. Mr. MacNamara, the 
engineer of 33, will tell you what to do.” 

They had a pleasant dinner in the balcony of the 
University Club, waited on by quick, efficient 
attendants, and gazing out at the beautiful foliage 
of the square beneath them. The University Club 
is the meeting place of the hundreds of college and 
university men in the Canal Zone; here old gridiron 
games are retold, old classmates may hold reunions, 
and friends get together for a cheerful evening. 

After parting from Mr. Bayliss, who was as busy 
as the average Canal Zone official, Bayliss and 
Hildreth sauntered down the Avenida del Central 
toward the railroad station, where they would get 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


123 


the first afternoon train to Culebra, to find Douglas 
Corning. They were talking of what had taken 
place since they were parted, and Bob was interested 
in Hildreth’s experiences in Colon, and particularly 
that one with the old-timer, Billy Long. 

“He is an old offender,” laughed Bob. “We 
shall put Coming on the trail. But your troubles 
are ended now, old fellow, with a job safely 
landed.” 

The train up from Balboa, the Pacific terminal 
of the Panama Railroad, and where the big docks are 
located, was on time, and they boarded the first-class 
car, after Bob had bought a ticket for Hildreth. 
As they rattled out of the city, passing the filthy 
shacks of the peons, Carvel was buried in thought, 
though he gazed at the snorting little engines that 
hauled excavation trains, for which the express had 
to wait, as dirt trains have the right of way in the 
Canal Zone; he glanced at Ancon Hill, beyond 
which the Canal writhed like a gigantic snake, but 
Bob saw he was preoccupied. 

Hildreth was thinking of the work ahead of him; 
on the morrow he. Carvel Hildreth, the son of 
Robert Hildreth, a prosperous New York financier, 
was to shovel coal as a common laborer! He was 
to do the work of a Barbadoes negro, when two 
weeks before he had been a spendthrift at college! 
While his physical condition was superb, the athlete 
dreaded the hours of toil with the shovel, the blister- 
ing his hands with work. 

The thought made him bitter toward his father, 


124 


THE LAST DITCH 


who had cast him off because he would not return 
to Ballard. Had Mr. Hildreth given him a clerk- 
ship in the New York office, he would not have 
been reduced to the necessity of being a laborer. 
The memory of the lottery disappointment still 
hurt, and the bitterness that started with the 
Ballard-Hamilton game, increased in his father's 
office, and was added to by the meeting with Neva, 
was now crushing him. 

“Never mind, old chap," said Bob, understanding 
his mood. “Wait till the first day of work is done, 
and you have gotten over the soreness. In a few 
days you will catch the spirit of the Canal, and all I 
shall hear will be you raving over what number 33 
has dug! You will be wild for 25 to be beaten for 
the monthly steam-shovel record; as soon as I hear 
you say ‘we' did this or that, then I’ll know you 
are a true Canal digger." 

“I'll stick," vowed Hildreth moodily, “simply 
because I 've got to. Bob. But it looks black enough 
now, goodness knows, when I thought I had a lot of 
money to take me back to the States." 

The train drew into Culebra in half an hour, and 
they descended from the yellow car to mingle with 
the crowd. A short walk brought them to the 
American town, which resembled Empire, Gorgona, 
and the others Hildreth had seen, so that the only 
interesting feature was the fact that it perched 
precariously on the verge of that vast chasm, 
Culebra Cut. Bob took his chum to house 145, for 
the Commission buildings are numbered in the Canal 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


125 


Zone, and showed him the room that he and Coming 
would have. 

It was a comfortable room on the second floor, 
with windows opening on a broad, screened porch, 
and Hildreth was taken with his quarters. The 
bachelor quarters in the Canal Zone reminded him 
of college dormitories, and as many of the occupants 
are college graduates, there is sufficient reason for 
the thought. He could see the houses of the married 
men, with little children playing on the verandas, 
and the housewives at work inside. 

Going over the house. Bob introduced him to 
several vigorous looking young fellows who had come 
in from work because of the excessive rains that made 
impossible any accomplishment for the day in the 
Cut. They were reading papers, sleeping, or talking 
of the one and only thing worth while, the Canal, 
and Hildreth was impressed with the manliness of 
these chaps who were living in exile to build the 
Big Ditch. He sensed again what had struck him 
with force in Cristobal, that despite all that was done 
for their comfort, which they appreciated, they were 
suffering from homesickness. 

He was asked eagerly for news from the States, and 
for the time the Canal Zone baseball league faded 
from mind as they queried about the Giants and the 
Red Sox back north. He gave them all the football 
news that he could, and was amused at the way 
these Canal Zone workers thirstily drank up all 
information about the doings in their old country. 
Even the Big Job cannot keep thoughts of home 


126 


THE LAST DITCH 


from besieging the single men, and at times the 
more fortunate married men look forward eagerly to 
the end of the work, and the going back to the 
States. 

“This is Bill Rosslyn, of Yale,” said Bob as a big 
chap got up to shake hands with Hildreth, for the 
Americans in Panama are fraternal always. “He 
is the craneman of number 33, where you will 
shovel coal. Bill, meet Mr. Carvel Hildreth, the 
former star right tackle of Ballard College.” 

It was an unfortunate introduction, for, after 
scrutinizing Hildreth, the man did not take the hand 
that the Ballard collegian extended. 

“I would rather not shake hands with a coward!” 
he said coldly. “We read of you over at the 
University Club, in the papers that came down on 
the Cristobal Saturday, and some sharp things were 
said about you. We read how you lost the Hamilton 
game by dodging back when the last rush came at 
you. So that’s the kind of chap who is to shovel 
coal for 33! Small chance of the record for us!” 

He made no attempt to conceal his scorn, and 
Hildreth’s heart sank within him. Was he never 
to live down results of that one imcontroUable 
action that had unjustly branded him a coward? 
If even here in the Canal Zone the enmity of others 
was to be felt, he must have done right, after all, to 
leave Ballard. But he could not satisfy himself 
with false reasoning; he knew that it showed him he 
ought to have stayed, since the consequences of his 
act followed him to Panama. 


THE OLD BITTERNESS 


127 


“Mr. Rosslyn,” he said, striving to be calm, “I 
was not a coward in that game; my side was 
severely gashed, and as that last rush started my 
right guard rammed his elbow against it, making 
me blind and faint. Had I been master of myself, 
I should have flung my body at that rush, no 
matter what happened. I was a coward to leave 
college, afraid to endure the shame of disgrace, 
but never a physical coward. You may believe 
me or not! I don’t care about any one’s opinion 
now!’’ 

Bayliss felt a thrill, for this was the first time 
Carvel had confessed his cowardice in leaving college. 
With his having realized he had done wrong, there 
was now some hope that he could be induced to go 
back; everything depended on the way he worked at 
shoveling coal. 

“Old man,’’ he said, when he had rejoined Carvel, 
who had turned away from Bill Rosslyn, not seeing 
that the Yale man was convinced by his words, 
“down here the fellows read everything in the papers 
from the States, and I guess they know all about that 
unfortunate game. Of course, they don’t dream 
you are here, and if you take another name — ” 

“No!” exclaimed Hildreth angrily. “I’ll face it, 
if I have to! I don’t care what happens now! I 
was not a coward, no matter who thinks so!” 

That night, after Corning had talked the events 
of the past two days with him and had gone to 
sleep, Hildreth walked out on the upper porch. 
The moon, rising over the palms that fringed the 


128 


THE LAST DITCH 


distant jungle, shed a soft light on the great Cut that 
stretched away between Gold Hill and Contractor's 
Hill, showing the jagged outlines of the gash on the 
face of Nature. He was bitter against the world 
now, for the meeting with Bill Rosslyn had shown 
him that his so-called cowardice was known even 
down in Panama, where he had come to escape 
the odium of it. 

“Where will it all end?” he muttered wearily. 

He gazed for a long time, broken in spirit, until he 
remembered that the next day meant work for him, 
and then, with a last look at the dark, mysterious 
jungle, he went to bed. 


CHAPTER XIII 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 

TTAD good old Bill Hoke, little Cupid Cavan- 
^ ^ augh, big Dad Hickson, or Grinder Graham 
stood on the grassy plot back of the Commission 
clubhouse at Culebra and peered down into the 
smoke-enshrouded chasm that stretched away to 
either side, he would have been astonished at a 
sight more wonderful to him than the mighty 
scenes of the Cut, one never witnessed at Ballard 
— that of Carvel Hildreth hard at work! 

Clad in greasy, coal-smutted overalls, the football 
star was shoveling away furiously, toiling until 
he ached in a fierce effort to satiate the ravenous 
maw of steam shovel 33’s furnace, as the huge scoop 
nosed into the earth and devoured rock and dirt 
from the bottom of the latest Culebra slide.- The 
sweat poured down Hildreth’s face in streams, 
streaking the black grime, and his yellow shirt 
clung affectionately to his muscular back as he 
shoveled. 

Without bothering to consult the engineers of the 
Commission, a peculiarity of Canal slides, this 
gigantic one had rumbled gently down into the Cut, 
adding two million cubic yards of excavation to 
the calculations made, and seriously endangering 
the Culebra post office, fire department, police 
station, and a few other buildings. The traveling 


129 


130 


THE LAST DITCH 


house-wrecking gangs had been hurried to the 
scene, and the imperiled buildings were tom down, 
to be rebuilt at a safe distance from the edge of 
the gorge. 

Mr. Bruce MacNamara, engineer of steam shovel 
33, had been sent to work at the bottom of the slide, 
with his bitter rival, 25, eating away at the top; 
spur tracks from the network at the bottom of the 
Cut ran past the shovels, and as fast as one excava- 
tion train was loaded, another of empty flat cars 
was waiting to take its place. Four mouthfuls of 
the dipper filled a car, so that it was a ceaseless 
performance of coal shoveling for Hildreth, as the 
system in the Cut is so perfect that there is never an 
instant’s delay. 

The collegian was doing the hardest kind of 
physical labor, — thanks to the determination of 
Bayliss to make him man enough to go back to 
Ballard, — work that was always assigned to negroes, 
for of the thirty-five thousand workers in the Canal 
Zone of two years ago, about five thousand were 
white Americans. Mr. MacNamara was the engi- 
neer, standing in the “house” and operating the 
levers that swung the big boom, with the dangling 
shovel, from the hillside to the flat cars. Bill 
Rosslyn, a young giant, was the craneman; he 
sat on the boom and knocked the catch that 
opened the dipper and let the mouthful of exca- 
vation vomit into the car, and glanced curiously 
at Hildreth from time to time, as Carvel shoveled 
doggedly. 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 131 


From where 33 shoveled away, swallowing the 
hillside below the clubhouse, Carvel had a wonderful 
view of the famous Culebra Cut, and once, when the 
catch refused to work and Rosslyn had to fix it, he 
rested on his shovel and gazed in silent awe at the 
most wonderful engineering feat of modem years, 
the slashing in two of a mountain range, digging 
eighty-five feet deep, and breaking the backbone of 
the great continental divide. 

To his right, facing the Cut, were Gold Hill and 
Contractor’s Hill, looming up mistily, with their 
heads clouded in smoke, and the deepest part of 
the Cut lying between them, while on his left the 
greht gash stretched away five miles toward Empire, 
a long, gloomy chasm, with a bewildering network of 
railroad tracks on its floor, red, jagged slopes, and 
filled with Lilliputians who urged big iron monsters 
to devour the earth. Through the gorge numberless 
excavation trains hurried, the motor-car specials 
loafed through, and the rock cars bound for Gatun 
roared along, drawn by toy engines. 

The dampness had driven downward the curtain 
of smoke that always hangs over the Cut, and it 
lowered over the hills, broken from below by the 
spurts of white steam from the roaring, screeching 
monsters that attacked the hills. Here and there 
the “dynamite squad” hurried, drilling holes, 
stringing wires, and placing the heavy charges that 
would blow the hills into crumbling fragments for 
the hungry steam shovels to eat later. At noon and 
at evening, when the Cut is clear of men, a button 


132 


THE LAST DITCH 


is pressed, and the terrific explosion is felt for 
miles. 

Hildreth was amused at the sight of the motor-car 
specials, whose wheels fitted the tracks, being held up 
impudently by insignificant excavation trains; pom- 
pous Congressmen, seeing the Cut in the worst possi- 
ble way, had to wait while the dirt-loaded flat cars 
rattled past, for work has the right of way in the 
Canal Zone. The system is so complete that if one 
excavation train runs off the end of a dump, as often 
happens, a dozen others and a few steam shovels 
will be thrown out of order. No loaded train is ever 
still; the instant its last car is full, it is off toward 
Gatun or the Pacific, and does not stop until it gets 
there, while the string of empties comes up to the 
steam shovel at once. 

The collegian was amazed at the simplicity of a 
system that insured such a vast amount of accom- 
plishment; each steam shovel was working at the top 
of a grade, and when a heavy excavation train left 
a shovel, it rolled downhill to the Pacific or the 
Atlantic, while the empties return by different tracks, 
doing all the uphill climbs. And the right kind of 
car, for rock or dirt, as the shovel dug in different 
soils, was always waiting for excavation! 

It was a Lidgerwood shovel that gave Hildreth 
such hard work, and already he was proud of the 
enormous load the dipper could scoop up and swing 
over to the flat car on the track. At times number 
33 groaned and snorted in protest, but always the 
vast load of rocks or dirt, five cubic yards, came up. 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 133 


thanks to Bill Rosslyn’s shouts, and MacNamara’s 
encouragements. To the crew, the steam shovel 
was human. They had worked with it for months, 
and knew its crazy freaks; they petted and talked 
to it, and declared that they alone could get good 
work out of it. 

The Culebra Cut was a source of never-ending 
excitement and enchantment to Hildreth, though his 
glimpses were few until eleven o’clock, when the 
morning shift was over, as the working hours all over 
the Zone are eight to eleven, and two until five. All 
over the Cut he heard the warning shrieks of the 
steam shovel whistles as a “dobey” shot went off, 
dynamite having been plastered against the side of a 
rock too big for a shovel dipper, and it was blown 
into smaller bits, easier handled. At times hundred- 
weights of rock hui-tled high in air, and then there 
was hasty dodging in the Cut. 

There were a hundred miles of tracks in the nine 
miles of Culebra Cut, and over them dozens of dirt 
trains and empties, with their ridiculous little 
engines, rattled constantly in a most bewildering 
chaos, sliding down grade toward the Pacific or 
Gatun, or climbing up to the shovels with empties, 
crossing and recrossing through switches at every 
few yards. Here Jamaican negroes were switch- 
men, and they waved red and white flags insanely; 
but with all the bustle and roar, there was never any 
confusion. 

No wonder that Carvel Hildreth, on his first day of 
work in Culebra Cut, had no time to think of the 


134 


THE LAST DITCH 


bitterness that had been his in the two weeks that 
had passed since the football game at Ballard. He 
was becoming more and more fascinated and 
impressed with each succeeding demonstration of the 
wonderful efficiency of Colonel Goethals’ administra- 
tion, and he thrilled with the thought that he was 
one of the Canal Zone Americans, laboring for its 
success, and living with these earnest, purposeful 
fellows in bachelor quarters at Culebra. 

And more than all, he told himself that he was 
working, earning his own living by the sweat of his 
brow! He pictured his lazy, careless life at college, 
studying little, lounging in his cozy room, or down- 
town in some escapade; he had thought he was 
happy then, but now, despite the aches of his body, 
there was a glow of satisfaction that he could not 
forget. At times he felt like throwing down the 
shovel in despair, for he was racked with pain and 
the torture of muscles that had not been used before, 
but he stuck grimly. 

Yet the physical strain on him, football athlete 
that he was, had proved to be something terrible. 
He sweated profusely in the red-hot glow from 33’s 
furnace fires, and the shovel handle wore big blisters 
on his hands that broke, and burned when the coal 
grit got into them. There were more muscles in 
his anatomy than he had ever dreamed of, and each 
was an aching, paining source of agony, while he was 
sure his back was broken. 

“I will stick!” he panted, as the whistle tooted 
and the rattle of the chains sounded again. “I 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 135 


won’t let Rosslyn say I am a quitter, not after the 
way he acted yesterday!” 

It was the supreme test, and Hildreth, thanks to 
Rosslyn’s presence, and the spell of the Big Job, 
was on the way to stand it. At times he thought of 
Douglas Coming, and he envied his shipmate his 
easy job as compared with the torture of his own; 
then he felt that impression that is shared by all 
engineers, surveyors, dynamite men, steam-shovel 
crews, and all who come in contact with the actual 
digging of the ditch — he was doing the real Canal 
work! He would rather sweat and dig at the coal 
until his hands bled, knowing that 33 was gnawing 
at the hill and aiding in this colossal task, than to be 
a white-handed official, or a flannel-foot! 

At eleven o’clock, a welcome hour for Hildreth, 
the steam shovels all screeched in a most unearthly 
fashion, and the dynamite squad put on the finishing 
touches to their work that would provide broken 
rock for the shovels that afternoon. There was no 
loitering in the Cut, but all hurried for Culebra, 
to wash up and run in the commissary hotels for the 
fine meal the Commission serves to its employees 
for thirty cents, paid for by their commissary tickets, 
for all purchasing in the Zone is done by this means. 

Bill Rosslyn, climbing down from the steam- 
shovel boom, came striding over the dirt and rock 
fragments to where Hildreth was wrapping his 
cracked, bleeding hands in rags. There was admira- 
tion in his gaze, and the collegian was astonished 
when he held out his hand to Carvel. 


136 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Hildreth,’* said the Yale man frankly, “you 
were never a coward! I don’t care what the papers 
say, I believe you told the truth yesterday. Will 
you shake hands now?” 

It was wonderful what that morning’s work in 
Culebra Cut had done for Hildreth, for he had 
actually sweated from his pores all the bitterness; 
the night before he w^ould have refused to meet this 
friendly advance, after Bill’s refusal to shake hands; 
but now, when he had toiled with Rosslyn on 33, 
he felt a strange comradeship. Were they not 
working together for the I. C. C., to build the Pan- 
ama Canal? 

“Sure,” he answered heartily. “Ouch, Bill! 
Don’t squeeze so, for my hands are as raw as steak! 
Are we ahead of 25?” 

Rosslyn grinned. So this big, athletic-looking 
fellow was getting into the spirit of the work, that 
good-natured yet keen rivalry that is encouraged 
among the steam-shovel crews by the Commission! 
Already he was eager to know if his shovel was ahead 
of 25, which was crowding 33 for the month’s 
excavation record. 

“We are ten cubic yards behind,” he answered, 
as they swung up the side of the Cut toward Culebra, 
“but you have got to shovel, pal, for that Harvard 
man is out to beat us. Ten yards isn’t much to 
make up, when the shovel eats five at a swallow!” 

At the commissary hotel, where the big dining 
room was filled with a noisy, chattering crowd of 
enthusiastic workers whose ardor grew with each 


% 



Earning his living by the sweat of his brow 


- itiamtm 









, •^ -^ *T • 

I- ' ' -“ — 

^ - , .. t* 





BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 137 


succeeding day that saw the Big Job nearer comple- 
tion at their hands, Hildreth and Bill Rosslyn found 
Bayliss, whose work as time keeper took him farther 
down the Cut. As the Panamanian waiters set 
their food before them, Hildreth told his companions 
of how he was awed and gripped by the Culebra 
Cut, and of how he had come to love his work of 
shoveling coal to 33 ’s fires. 

“That’s the stuff!” rejoiced Bob. “But wait 
until morning, old man, and you have to crawl out 
of bed! If you can go to work to-morrow, and 
stick all day, even when the rain falls in torrents, 
then the worst is passed. By the way, I saw Mr. 
Barton, Neva, young Gonzales, and a Panamanian 
gentleman whom I took to be his father, over at 
Empire.” 

“They won’t come through the Cut!” gasped 
Hildreth, who dreaded having his old friends see 
him do the work of a Barbadoes negro. “I can’t 
have them see me shoveling coal!” 

“I am afraid you are in for it,” grinned Bob. 
“They have a special at the station at Empire, 
where they are eating dinner, and they will come 
through the Cut to Bas Obispo; the track runs right 
by number 33, too!” 

After dinner they had until two o’clock for rest, 
and the tired collegian made the most of his oppor- 
tunity, though it would have been better had he 
kept in motion, for lying down made his muscles 
stiffen. But his zeal mastered his weariness, and 
after the steam-shovel whistle chorus summoned 


10 


138 


THE LAST DITCH 


the army of gnomes to labor in the dark abyss, he 
was shoveling coal with a will, though his hands 
were cracked open, and bleeding. 

Bob’s prophecy was fulfilled, for near three 
o’clock, when the work in the Cut was tearing along 
at top speed, a motor car came rolling along the 
track that passed within a few yards of 33, and to 
Hildreth’s consternation he saw that Mr. Barton 
and his party were in it. The guide, supplied by 
the Commission, had the special stop near the roar- 
ing monster that nosed into the rocks and dirt, 
swung around to the flat car, and then vomited its 
mouthful over a fourth of its surface. 

“Here we have a close view of a steam shovel at 
work!’’ he called, above the clatter and confusion. 
“Observe the immense load that the dipper can 
take up and deposit on the flat car! You will see 
that this shovel keeps the tired Barbadoes negro 
shoveling coal at a great rate!” 

This was one on Hildreth, for the guide had not 
observed that there was a white American stoking 
33’s fires. But Neva and her father, gazing at the 
young fellow who so persistently kept his back 
toward them, wondered why 33 had him, instead 
of the peon labor they had seen at other shovels. 
Even young Gonzales did not recognize Hildreth, 
and he was hoping that all would go well, when Bill 
Rosslyn unconsciously spoiled everything. 

“Say, Hildreth,” he bawled from the boom. 
“ let out another notch, old man ! I see 25 is making 
a big hole in the top of the slide!” 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 139 


“Hildreth!” echoed the promoter, stepping down. 
“Why, Neva, it’s Carvel! Young fellow, what 
under the sun are you doing this for? Does your 
father know you are doing the work of a peon down 
here?” 

He had hastened to Hildreth, but he had to wait 
till the collegian swung a shovelful of coal on the 
blazing furnace of 33. Then Hildreth, his face red 
with the heat, and grimed with smoke and dirt, 
grinned through his black mask at Mr. Barton. 

“Well, Mr. Barton,” he said pleasantly, “how 
goes the scheme to get land in Bocas del Toro? 
Have the titles been cleared yet?” 

“Carvel,” Mr. Barton lowered his voice, “I 
confess that I am worried; I believe the Gonzales 
are guilty of trickery, and from what I have seen, 
and what Neva told me occurred on the ship, I am 
convinced that they are trying to steal my options, 
and tear them up! 

“I have seen the government at Panama City, 
and I believe that the deeds to the Bocas del Toro 
land can easily be cleared up, so that I shall be able 
to buy with clear titles. That seems to anger these 
Panamanians, for I hold a first option on the valuable 
banana land, and they have a second option. They 
want my land, but hate to share their own in the 
interior, which I have been after.” 

“ I have suspected that all along,” agreed Hildreth. 
“He tempted you with promises to sell or share his 
interior acres, just to keep with you. Let him 
destroy the first option you hold on the Bocas del 


140 


THE LAST DITCH 


Toro property, so he can use his second option, 
and he will throw you down.” 

After a few more words, for Bill Rosslyn was 
chafing with fear that this delay would let 25 gain 
a lap on the record, Mr. Barton, who was plainly 
worried, walked back to the car. Jose Gonzales, 
who had been staring at Carvel, remembered the 
experience with this collegian on the Cristobal, and 
made a remark that stung Hildreth. 

“ In ze Canal Zone, Mees Barton,” he said suavely, 
“ze men of brains do ze superintending, and ze 
brutes do ze labor!” 

But Neva was gazing at Hildreth wonderingly, 
and Carvel persuaded himself there was a touch of 
admiration in her look. The girl watched the splen- 
did muscles ripple up and down his back, and 
wondered that this childhood playmate, brought up 
in luxury, could stand such hard work. She began to 
hope that he might gain courage, by this mingling 
with men, to return to college; then Mr. Barton, 
after inviting Carvel to visit them at the Tivoli in 
Ancon, went away, and the special rolled on through 
the Cut. 

Two hours later the whistles announced the end 
of the day’s toil, and Hildreth, almost ready to drop 
with fatigue, was heartily glad. His body was 
tired and aching, but his spirit was fresh, for he was 
thoroughly under the thrall of the Big Job. He 
walked to Culebra with Rosslyn, and leaving that 
toughened athlete, he went into his room, to fling 
himself at full length on the bed. 


BY THE SWEAT OF HIS BROW 141 


“My first day's work!” he told himself content- 
edly. “And I stuck! To-morrow will be hard, 
but not like to-day. I have shown myself and the 
others that I can make good here!” 

He was one big ache from head to foot, his tom 
hands throbbed with pain, and his wrenched muscles 
ground on each other in a torturing way, but there 
was a strange satisfaction that rested him. Try 
as he would, he could not remember the bitterness 
at college; all he thought of was the wonderful 
Culebra Cut, with its myriads of workers, the big 
point of the Canal, and that he was working! 

It had been a cmel test, from a physical stand- 
point, but Hildreth had stood it nobly. Now that 
he had not won the lottery prize, he had been 
thrown among men of purpose, he was toiling amid 
scenes that stirred his soul to a desire to be worth 
while; though he tried to shake it off, deep within 
him there was a thought that he would like to be 
back at Ballard, facing bravely the shame and 
loneliness he had left! 

Before he went to sleep, to slumber as one dead 
until Bayliss and Coming called him to supper, he 
muttered sleepily to himself: 

“I am really at work, and it’s queer, but I believe 
I like it!” 


CHAPTER XIV 
bob’s story 

T he municipal band was giving the Sunday night 
concert in the Plaza del Central, Panama City. 
The dreary, insistent tropical rain of the day had 
ceased, and the leaden clouds had broken into 
drifting masses through which the stars gleamed, 
and the moon shed a soft radiance down on the old 
cathedral by the square, and filtered through the 
broad palm fronds around the Plaza. From the 
windows of the Panazone Club on one side, and 
the University Club on the other, Panamanians 
and Americans listened to the music of the gayly 
uniformed native band. 

A varied, brilliantly dressed crowd thronged the 
Plaza, for the Sunday night concert offers a dress 
parade to Panamanians. Through the walks, bor- 
dered with the bright tropical plants and flowers 
in a wild confusion of colors, moved the restless, 
shifting throngs. Short, dark-faced Panamanians, 
swarthy Spaniards, with the haughty, red-lipped 
Castillian belles, here a “yellow Chinee” from the 
city shops, and there a statuesque Greek woman; 
all impelled by the spirit of unrest that is bred in 
the tropical heat. 

On the seats in the Plaza near the stand where the 
musicians gave the concert a number of Americans 


142 


BOB’S STORY 


143 


from Ancon and the other government towns along 
the railroad were resting, white flanneled and at ease, 
in strange contrast to the hot-blooded Panamanians 
who were constantly on the move. Some had 
brought their wives, and little children played 
about, under the mothers’ watchful eyes; it was 
for all the world like a city square back in the 
States, so far as the Americans were concerned. 

On a seat some distance from where the spires 
of the ancient cathedral reared themselves in the 
pale moonlight, sat Carvel Hildreth and Bob Bayliss, 
who had spent most of the afternoon in seeing 
Panama City, Balboa, and the picturesque ruins 
of Old Panama. Bayliss, since his father was an 
official in the Canal Zone, had seen most of the 
Isthmus near the Canal, but he was mildly 
interested in watching the Panamanian belles, 
accompanied by their mothers, followed at a safe 
distance around and around the square by their 
admirers. 

To Hildreth, however, Panama was a source of 
never-ending pleasure. He had landed in Cristobal 
a week before, and was now shoveling coal for steam 
shovel 33, in Culebra Cut, having pluckily stayed 
at his job after the terrible first day. The curious 
habits of the Spiggoty people interested him, and 
the wonderful scenery was a revelation, with beauti- 
ful foliage and luxuriant vegetation. He had never 
ceased to wonder at the contrast between the 
modem appearance of the Canal Zone, and the 
ancient, shiftless, and indolent Panamanian towns. 


144 


THE LAST DITCH 


With a careless indifference to the fact that the 
band was playing furiously some Panamanian air, 
Hildreth, with a feeling of patriotism, was whist- 
ling “My Country, 'Tis of Thee!” as he watched 
the crowds surge past them. Bom and reared an 
American, he was proud of his native land, and all 
the more now, having seen the marvelous achieve- 
ment of the government on the Big Ditch. 

“Shut up, Hildreth 1 ” Bob spoke irritably. “The 
band is n’t playing any of your national airs. Wait 
until the finish, when they pander to the applause 
of the Americans in the Plaza by murdering ‘The 
Star Spangled Banner.’ ” 

Carvel stopped whistling and looked in wonder 
at his chum. 

“ My national airs? ” he repeated. “ Why, are n’t 
they yours, too?” 

“I haven’t any,” said Bayliss with bitterness. 
“To me ‘The Watch on the Rhine,’ the ‘Battle 
Hymn of Austria,’ ‘Yankee Doodle,’ and ‘God Save 
the King,’ are one and the same. How can you 
expect me to get up and cheer when the band plays 
‘The Star Spangled Banner’? I left the United 
States when I was two years old, and I landed in 
New York two years ago in September, for the first 
time, to enter Hamilton.” 

Bob had never referred to the trouble that he 
had mentioned on the Cristobal, and he hesitated 
a moment now, then went on. 

“You have told me what bitterness has been 
yours,” he said, “and I am trying to make you go 


BOB’S STORY 


145 


back to Ballard and fight it out there. I am going 
to tell you why I cannot feel like cheering when the 
band plays American airs. 

“When I was two years old. Dad, who was then 
a promoter, was appointed the foreign representative 
of a large American company that was formed to 
promote and build factories in European countries. 
He took me with him, as my mother had died a few 
months before, and as a result I grew up in several 
lands; a year or two in England, a part of my child- 
hood in France, some time in Germany, three years 
in Switzerland, and short periods in Egypt and 
other places. Not until I was to enter college did 
Dad, a Hamilton graduate, send me back to the 
States, for he came here to Panama. 

“As a natural consequence, Hildreth, I am a 
proficient linguist, for I have a knowledge of several 
languages, but I have no love for any particular 
country. I admire the beautiful scenery of rural 
England, the vastness of London; I am enthusiastic 
over gay Paris, and the industry of the German 
people is wonderful; the wild beauty of the Swiss 
mountains is thrilling, but I feel no pride in any 
one of these lands. As for the United States, it is 
only a land that my father boasts of, and in which 
I feel no interest.” 

“But your father?” asked Hildreth. “Doesn’t 
this trouble him?” 

“It is a source of keen regret to him,” confessed 
Bayliss, “that I feel no love for the ‘Land of the 
free, and the home of the brave,’ but he understands 


146 


THE LAST DITCH 


that it is the inevitable result of the roaming life 
I have led until now. He says that he should have 
left me in the States, to be brought up with a 
patriotic love for the land of my birth, but he 
was lonely, for mother had died, so he wanted me 
with him. Now he hopes that in some way a 
spirit of patriotism will be awakened in me for the 
United States.” 

” I understand,” answered Hildreth gently. “ But 
it is the land of your birth, Bob, and it seems impos- 
sible that sooner or later you will not love it. Why, 
don’t you feel a thrill when you see the Canal, 
with the Cut, the gigantic work at Gatun, and know 
that our nation is making a success of it all?” 

“That’s it!” returned Bob gloomily. “It’s your 
nation, Hildreth. I ’d like to feel that my country 
is doing the Big Job, but there would have to be 
an administration of Englishmen, Frenchmen, Ger- 
mans, Egyptians, and Swiss before I could arise 
and sing an anthem of praise composed in several 
languages.” 

Hildreth was forced to laugh, but he sobered 
instantly. 

“I won’t talk about it now, old man,” he said 
earnestly, “but I have hopes of making a true 
American of you before I leave the Canal Zone. 
You are working to make a man of me, and to make 
me go back to Ballard, as I should, so I’ll take a 
hand with you. Bob. Well, you have your bitter- 
ness, as well as I ; I have n’t a college, or a father, 
but you haven’t a country!” 


BOB’S STORY 


147 


“By the way, Carvel,” remarked Bayliss, after 
a pause, “after the concert we must walk over to 
the University Club. Mr. MacDonald, the secre- 
tary of the Games Committee of the Y. M. C. A. 
League, who has charge of the big meet at Cristobal 
next week, called me by telephone to-day and asked 
me to meet him there at ten, and to bring you 
along.” 

“Bring me?” echoed Hildreth. “I wonder what 
he wants?” 

“I have an idea he wants you to run,” explained 
Bob. “You see, the Americans here get fearfully 
lonely, despite the baseball games and tennis, so 
they are eager for any big event, and a track meet 
in the Canal Zone is a great day. There are lots 
of college men from the States, and the events are 
well contested.” 

“Then you must get in shape. Bob!” exclaimed 
Hildreth enthusiastically. “I saw you run in our 
dual meet with Hamilton, and if you can’t beat 
any runner for a quarter mile that is in the Canal 
Zone, I am mistaken!” 

He remembered the quarter mile in which Bayliss 
had broken the tape ahead of the Ballard sprinters 
with ease, and he was confident that his chum could 
win that event in the Cristobal meet. As for him- 
self, he had gone in for field events at Ballard, being 
a pole vaulter, and he was not sure of being able 
to place against such former ’Varsity stars as would 
be in the meet. 

“There it goes!” exclaimed Bob, as the band 


148 


THE LAST DITCH 


struck into the closing piece with a crash, “The Star 
Spangled Banner,” played out of courtesy to the 
numerous Americans in the Plaza. Hildreth arose 
with the rest of his countrymen and took off his hat 
while the selection was being played, but Bayliss, 
with a set expression on his face, remained seated. 
When the last strains and the applause had died 
away. Carvel turned to him in surprise. 

“Why, you didn’t take off your hat. Bob!” he 
exclaimed. “I could never have remained still 
while that selection was being played.” 

“You are an American,” reminded Bayliss sadly, 
“while I am a composite nothing. You felt your 
heart leap when they played it, but I was not moved. 
It would have meant the same to me if the band had 
played the national air of any country. I have 
tried hard to be an American, for Dad’s sake, but 
I can’t do it!” 

There was a bitter sorrow in his tone that touched 
Carvel, and made him forget the anger he had felt 
at seeing Bob remain seated during the playing of 
the piece that had made him surge with pride of 
country. He changed the conversation into another 
channel as they arose and walked through the Plaza 
to the University Club. 

“Now we shall see what this Mr. MacDonald 
wants of you. Bob,” he laughed. “He must have 
some great plan for entertaining the Canal workers, 
and wants you to show your wonderful speed in 
the event you star in always. But why he told you 
to bring me along is a puzzle.” 


BOB’S STORY 


149 


“Well,” returned Bob, as they walked up the 
steps, “here we are.” 

An attendant informed them that Mr. MacDonald 
was in the reading room, and they hastened to find 
him. To their amazement, they found there were 
several other young fellows with the secretary of 
the Games Committee. One of them, a short, 
sullen-looking Panamanian, Bayliss recognized as 
Pedro Nunez, son of an interpreter in the Isthmian 
Canal Commission, and he eyed the chap with sus- 
picion, for he knew Nunez to be treacherous and 
unreliable. The others he knew slightly, for all 
were employed on the Canal in some manner, either 
as clerks, time keepers, or in some other of the 
numberless positions on the Big Job. 

“I was waiting for you, Bayliss,” said Mr. Mac- 
Donald, who was a Princeton man, and an excavation 
train engineer in the Cut, “and for your friend. 
You will be surprised to see what a ‘congress of 
nations’ I have assembled here to-night. These 
fellows are Nunez of Panama, Lockwood of England, 
Lefevre of France, and Oleson of Sweden; this is 
Bob Bayliss of the Canal Zone, and his friend, 
Hildreth.” 

“Ay bane glad to meet you,” said Oleson gravely. 
He was a stout, sturdy chap, with white hair and 
red face. 

*‘Oui!'* agreed Lefevre, who was tall and thin, 
“lam charmed.” 

“Quite a joke, don’t you know,” laughed Lock- 
wood. “This beats the Hague Peace Conference, 


150 


THE LAST DITCH 


y’ understand. Tell them what a jolly good plan 
you have, Mr. MacDonald!” 

Nunez’s shifty eyes scrutinized Bob's fine build 
with appraising gaze, and at once Hildreth took an 
instinctive dislike to the little Panamanian, for he 
read in his face a cimning deceit, and an animal 
cruelty that would stop at nothing in the accomplish- 
ment of a cherished ambition. 

• In looking over the entries for the quarter mile 
in the Cristobal meet next week,” began the secretary 
of the Games Committee, “I found to my surprise 
that five nationalities were represented. I con- 
ceived the idea of having an international race, and 
the committee decided it would be a great thing, 
so I got you fellows to meet each other here.” 


CHAPTER XV 


BOB DECIDES 

“AN international race!” breathed Hildreth. 

“What a hit that will make! Say, Bob, 
I envy you your sprinting powers; wouldn’t I like 
to represent the United States in that event!” 

Bayliss waved him aside with a gesture of 
weariness. 

“Each contestant will wear his national colors,” 
continued Mr. MacDonald, “and the band will 
play the airs of the different countries. All have 
agreed but Bayliss, and I will enter him to represent 
the United States, if he is willing.” 

“Eet weel be a great race!” said Pedro Nunez, a 
queer gleam in his black eyes. “I haf seen all ze 
fellows run but Meester Bayliss, and they are fast. 
Me, I cannot run fast enough to win for ze Republic 
of Panama.” 

“Don’t you believe that, fellows,” said Bob 
quickly. “He has tom off a quarter in fifty-two 
flat more than once.” 

“Hurry up, old man,” urged Hildreth. “Tell 
Mr. MacDonald that the plan is a great one, and 
that you will wear the Stars and Stripes in the 
international race at Cristobal!” 

But Bayliss hesitated. 

“Give me time to think it over,” he said to the 
secretary. “I don’t know that I want to enter 
151 


152 


THE LAST DITCH 


such a race, for there are reasons that I cannot 
explain to you. When must you have my decision? ’ ’ 

“By to-morrow at ten o’clock,” said Mr. Mac- 
Donald promptly, “for the entries must be closed 
at that hour. You and Hildreth go home and talk 
it over. Bob, and call me up at the Culebra Y. M. C. 
A. to-morrow morning. Be sure and say that you 
will enter, for you are the fastest quarter-miler our 
country can enter.” 

“Come on, be a sport, old chap!” exhorted the 
English youth. “It’s a bully idea, you know, to 
run for your own nation. Even Nunez here will 
run his heart out for his country!” 

“I’ll do as you advise, Mr. MacDonald,” said 
Bob shortly. “Carvel and I will talk the ihatter 
over to-night, and let you know in the morning. 
There are some details in the affair that only he 
knows about. Good night.” 

They shook hands with the athletic secretary, who 
drew Hildreth aside and begged him to influence 
Bayliss to enter the race, as it had been for this 
purpose that he had sent for Carvel, too ; then they 
descended to the street. The other fellows followed. 
Lockwood and Lefevre lived in Empire, but would 
be at the Tivoli, in Ancon, that night; Oleson, from 
Gorgona, was at the Panazone, and Nunez lived 
in Panama City. Hildreth and Bayliss, as it was 
too late for a train to Culebra, had arranged to 
bunk with friends in the Ancon bachelor quarters. 

Nothing was said between Bob and Hildreth 
concerning the race imtil after they had left the 


BOB DECIDES 


153 


other two below the railroad station on the Avenida 
del Central, where one road winds over the slope to 
the Hotel Tivoli, and the other turns to the left and 
leads to the American town of Ancon, on past the 
caravansary. 

“Of course you will represent the United States?” 
questioned Hildreth with eagerness. “I have come 
to understand why, down here in this torrid land, 
the Americans get more enjoyment out of baseball 
and track meets than we do in the States. This 
unusual race is for the purpose of helping the Canal 
Zone people to enjoy a good time, so you must run 
for our nation.” 

“I don’t know,” answered Bob slowly. “I 
have n’t any particular love for the United States, 
Hildreth, any more than I have for France or 
England. I don’t see why I should put on the Stars 
and Stripes and run in that race. If I were as ardent 
a patriot as you, it would be a different thing.” 

“I just wish I could run the quarter!” exclaimed 
the Ballard collegian. “I would give anything to 
beat that treacherous little Nunez. He will win 
that race by fair means or foul, and if you run. Bob, 
keep a watch on him. But even if you haven’t any 
love for the best land on earth, old chum, for my 
sake run, will you?” 

They were passing the fire-department house, 
turning to their left and walking down a side street 
of Ancon, between neat, orderly rows of screened 
houses to number 143, where they were to stay for 
the night with some of Bob’s friends. The moon 


11 


154 


THE LAST DITCH 


was bright overhead, and as Hildreth asked the 
question, Bob turned quickly at a sound in the road 
behind them, and caught sight of a form that slunk 
behind the vegetation at the roadside, in the shadows 
of the palms. 

“ Wait a minute ! ” he whispered to Carvel. “ Some 
one is following us! Go on talking as though you 
suspected nothing, and when I touch your arm, 
make a dash into the shadows back of us, to the 
left. I think it is a Panamanian, and maybe he is 
out to rob us.” 

A few seconds later Hildreth felt a hand on his arm, 
and obeying the signal, he whirled suddenly and ran 
in the direction of a figure that slipped from the 
shadows and sped down the road away from them. 
Hildreth was soon distanced in the chase, but 
Bayliss exerted all his speed and gained on the 
fugitive. A little past the fire-engine house they 
had lately passed, he made a flying tackle and cut 
the Panamanian to the ground. 

The little fellow fought frantically, but when 
Hildreth came up he was quickly subdued, and 
together they turned him over, to let the tropical 
moon shine full in his dark face, distorted by fear 
and anger. 

“Pedro Nunez!” cried Bayliss. “What do you 
mean, you tricky little Spiggoty? Why have you 
followed us here, when you live over in Panama 
City?” 

“I will haf revenge!” snarled Nunez savagely. 
“ I haf done nothing to you; I haf come thees way to 


BOB DECIDES 


155 


see some one in Ancon. What for haf you run 
after me, to knock me down? Ah, you call me 
tricky, you call me a little Spiggoty!” 

“You followed to hear what we had to say,” 
retorted Bob grimly. “And now you know just 
what we think of you. Get back to Panama as 
fast as your short legs will bear you, Pedro. If you 
don’t run any faster than this in the international 
race, I think you will finish last.” 

Nunez drew himself up proudly. 

“I will represent my country!” he declared 
dramatically. “I haf already run ze race faster 
than ze English, ze French, and ze Swede, and I 
fear them not. But you, Bayliss, I am ’fraid of; 
I hear you are fast. Leesten; you haf insult me, 
and I will haf revenge! I will win ze race from ze 
United States, eef I have to keel both of you to do 
eet!” 

“Try it!” blazed Bayliss, his temper aroused at 
last. “ I ’ll be in that race, Nunez, and I ’ll beat you, 
no matter what you do or say! I can give you ten 
yards and then beat you out. You try any killing 
business, and we’ll give you a good spanking!” 

Nunez shrank back and retreated a few paces. 
But before he turned and hurried down the macadam- 
ized road toward Panama City, he shot his parting 
arrow. 

“Remember!” he taunted. “There ees many a 
slip between ze cup and ze lip! Down with ze 
United States! Ze Republic of Panama will win 


156 


THE LAST DITCH 


They watched him until the shadows far down the 
road had swallowed him up. From the Hotel 
Tivoli, across from where they stood, there came the 
sound of music, and the hotel was ablaze with 
light, for all the American and Panamanian notables 
were in the ballroom for a diplomatic dance. Back 
of them. Ancon Hill looked dark and impressive, 
looming against the clear sky. 

“Well,” exclaimed Bayliss, “what did I tell you? 
And that is no idle threat of his. Carvel, for these 
Latin-Americans have no idea of law and order. 
He would as soon have you and me knifed and flung 
from the Sea Wall into the Bay of Panama as not.” 

“We must be on our guard,” cautioned Hildreth. 
“He is nothing if not patriotic, and he wants to win 
for his country. By the way. Bob, you talked as 
though you intend to be in that international event.” 

Bob faced his companion. 

“ You are right ; I shall run it ! ” he declared. “ But 
it is because I am not going to let that little sneak 
beat me. Carvel. You may tie the Stars and 
Stripes on me and yell when your country wins the 
race, but I ’ll win it for my own sake, and not for the 
United States. I haven’t a country, but I can’t 
stand by and see Nunez make this dinky little 
republic carry off the glory!” 

Hildreth smiled, but refrained from telling Bob 
what his opinion on the matter was. He only said, 
teasingly: 

“Not that you love the United States more, but 
Panama less. Well, you call up Mr. MacDonald 


BOB DECIDES 


157 


to-morrow and tell him that you will run for the 
U. S. A. That will assure us of victory, no matter 
what makes you run. I have hopes of landing a 
country for you before long, Bob. How would the 
Republic of Panama strike you?’" 

Then Bayliss chased him into the house. 


CHAPTER XVI 

HILDRETH’S PLOT 

A ll the week that passed before the Saturday 
of the big track meet at Cristobal, Hildreth 
was so occupied in thinking of his friend’s strange 
plight that he entirely forgot his own exile from 
college and home. While he shoveled coal to the 
blazing fires of 33, a task that was easy now, as his 
muscles were like iron, he tried to think of some 
way to make a real American of Bob Bayliss. At 
times he became so engrossed in thought that Bill 
Rosslyn, peering down from the boom, had to 
remind him in a polite yell that 25 was five cubic 
yards ahead of them. 

On the morning of the day before the meet, Bayliss 
joyfully informed Hildreth that he had secured 
leave of absence for them until Monday, though 
Coming, who was not under Mr. Bayliss’ super- 
vision, would have to work until Saturday at noon. 
The Commission had kindly allowed the men 
entered in the track events to have this time off, 
in order to prepare for their contests, for the I. C. C. 
is ever ready to encourage anything that helps make 
the Americans content. 

“Then I have a plan to suggest,” rejoined Hil- 
dreth, who was happy at this chance to try his idea 
of making Bob a patriot. “Let’s take the first 


158 


HILDRETH’S PLOT 


159 


train over to Gatun, and stay between trains there; 
I have never seen the locks and dam at close 
range.” 

‘‘And then stay in Cristobal to-night?” queried 
Bayliss, as they arose from the breakfast table at 
the commissary hotel. “That is a good thought, 
Carvel, for it will give me a chance to see how the 
work at Gatun is progressing, and then I can get 
a good night’s rest before the meet.” 

The workers at each important place in the Canal 
Zone, as Culebra Cut, Miraflores, Pedro Miguel, 
and Gatun, are always eager to see how their rivals 
are progressing; those who labor in the Cut run 
over to Gatun on Sundays to watch the rising of 
the lock walls, the men quarrying rock down on the 
island of Porto Bello take the tug to Cristobal, 
and then the trains to see the Canal, and there is a 
keen interest in all of the Big Ditch by the various 
sections. It is their work, their accomplishment, 
and they are justly proud of it. 

Leaving the hotel, they had to sprint for Culebra 
station, as the yellow train was already pulling in. 
Both had their commissary ticket books, and they 
reached the platform in time to swing aboard the 
first-class car as the engine began to puff for a start. 
Seating themselves in the rattan chairs, they looked 
from the window at the clouded sky that frowned 
on the smoky Cut. 

“Rain to-morrow,” said Bob gloomily. “This 
is the rainy season, and we cannot expect good 
weather, not even for the big meet. That is about 


160 


THE LAST DITCH 


the only thing that the I. G. C. can’t regulate in 
the Canal Zone — the weather!” 

A little over an hour’s ride brought them to the 
station at Gatun, half a mile from the gigantic 
work on the dam and locks, and they left the train. 
It was a part of Carvel’s plan for Bob’s patriotism 
to get Bayliss to feel what so awed the Ballard 
collegian — the immensity of the undertaking that 
the United States was bringing to a successful 
completion. He hoped that when Bob thought 
seriously of what colossal things had been achieved, 
as he himself had been impressed in the barren 
room at the Colon hotel, where the old-timer held 
him enthralled, he would surely have awakened 
within him a pride for this land of his birth. 

As the train pulled out of the Gatun station Hil- 
dreth seized Bob’s arm and pointed excitedly at a 
face that was peering from a window of the parlor 
car. It was that of the young Panamanian, Pedro 
Nunez. 

“Now, I wonder what he is up to?” questioned 
Bayliss. “Oh, I guess he is on his way to Colon 
to spend the night before he nms in the meet. 
Most all of the athletes will do that, rather than 
ride on the crowded specials to-morrow.” 

They walked down the road from the station 
toward the Canal. Before them the great Gatun 
Lake spread out, a hundred and fifty square miles 
of water, held in place by the enormous Gatun dam, 
a small mountain range in itself. The dam runs 
a mile and a half from Gatun village across to the 


HILDRETH'S PLOT 


161 


other side of the Chagres Valley, and is a master- 
piece of modem engineering, a project that was 
scoffed at when suggested by the De Lesseps con- 
gress at Paris, in 1879. 

While they stood gazing at the marvelous scene, 
a young engineer in yellow shirt and corduroy 
trousers, with leather puttees, came up to Bayliss 
and shook hands cordially. He was a Cornell 
engineer, and Bob had met him several times in 
Culebra Cut; he was introduced to Hildreth as 
“Tug” Worthington, the former Red and White 
fullback. 

“How was the dam made?” responded the engi- 
neer, in answer to a query from the enthralled 
Hildreth*. “Well, I have been at work on it ever 
since the start, so I guess I am competent to say a 
little about it. At first we ran a parallel line of 
trestles across, about a quarter-mile apart, and the 
dirt and excavation trains from Culebra Cut made 
a continuous line, going and coming with spoils, 
which they dumped at the foot of each trestle. 

“They called these places the ‘toes’ of the dam, 
and loose rock, from the steam shovels in the Cut, 
was brought on the rock trains and dumped on these 
heaps of dirt until they were sixty-five feet above 
the sea; then the weight of the toes pressed out the 
soft soil below them until they sank to a solid 
foundation. The suction dredges are filling between 
them with sand and clay; outside of the toes material 
is being placed. 

“When the dam is completed, which will be soon. 


162 


THE LAST DITCH 


it will be a mile and a half long, one hundred and 
fifteen feet high, eighty feet wide at the top, and 
close to a mile wide at the bottom!’* 

“Think of that. Bob!’’ gasped Hildreth. “Hu- 
man beings have constructed such an immense 
thing, and Americans they are, too!’’ 

Near the middle of the dam a hill of solid stone 
arose, which the engineer informed them was the 
foundation for the spillway, to relieve the dam of 
the strain that will come when the freshets cause 
the Chagres River to pour vast volumes of water 
into the lake. 

“Up at Gamboa,’’ said Worthington, “the water 
rose forty feet inside of twelve hours, one time. 
The Canal Record shows — you can read the back 
copies from the start of the Canal work — that we 
have had corps of men inspecting the watersheds 
that empty into the Chagres Valley, which we 
have dammed here. And they are the true heroes 
of this mighty enterprise, too!” 

“Why?” demanded Bayliss. “Is their work 
harder than any other?” 

“They plunged into the jungles outside the Zone,” 
explained Mr. Worthington, “far from the sani- 
tation that has been done here. Machete wielders 
cut a path through the virgin jungle, so the sur- 
veyors could follow, and the men swallowed sulphate 
of quinine all the time, forty or more grains a day. 
At regular intervals fever victims floated down the 
river in native canoes, to the hospital at Ancon. 

“But the results have repaid them. They have 


HILDRETH’S PLOT 


163 


maps of the watersheds, records of the rains and 
droughts, and the problem of keeping the water in 
the lake is correctly solved; down to level in wet 
season, and up to it in the dry. There is to be a 
system of gates on the spillway, to regulate the 
flow of water. 

“By telephone, rapid rises of water in the upper 
regions of the Chagres will be reported to the man 
in charge of the spillway, and he will figure out how 
many gates to open, so as to keep the water at the 
right level. And so wonderful is the system here, 
that the water flowing through the spillway is not 
wasted, but will be used by a turbine plant to make 
electricity for the operation of the gates, and the 
apparatus that will tow ships through the locks.” 

Accompanied by the engineer, they walked toward 
the locks. As they neared the scene of industry 
they saw the excavation trains rumbling from Cule- 
bra, and Hildreth was given the chance to witness 
what was done with the earth and rocks that he 
helped 33 to dig from the hillside of the Cut. There 
were great berm cranes on top of the ninety-foot 
walls, sliding concrete into the caverns below; huge 
concrete mixers rattled and roared, machinery 
clanked, yet all this with a definite purpose of 
accomplishment. 

Hildreth had been thrilled at seeing Culebra Cut 
for the first time, but a close view of Gatun impressed 
him into silence. Here was an intimate sight of the 
great locks that were the awe and admiration of an 
engineering world; here was a vast lake, built as 


164 


THE LAST DITCH 


a aide issue to the work itself, and dammed by a 
moimtain thrown across a valley! 

“And the United States is doing this! “ he exulted, 
with a covert glance at Bayliss, who was gazing 
raptly at the sight. “Does n’t that make you feel 
proud of your country. Bob, that it is doing this 
stupendous work?’’ 

“I have no country,’’ said Bayliss briefly. 

“The locks are made in duplicate here,’’ resumed 
the engineer, “as well as at Miraflores and Pedro 
Miguel. They are at Gatun one thousand feet 
long, a hundred and ten feet wide, and forty-one 
feet deep, all of solid concrete!’’ 

Standing on the edge of one of these gigantic 
diambers, they peered down at the depths below, 
where the myrmidons of men rushed to and fro. 
They could see across a valley a hundred feet wide 
to the center wall, and three a_uarters of a mile 
toward the end of the three immense locks. It was 
a sight that must be seen to be grasped in its vast- 
ness, for no descriptions can bring to mind a picture 
of the Gatun locks. 

The engineer who had helped to build this Gatun 
dam, which would stand as a lasting monument 
to his prowess, went with them all over the place; 
they descended by the spiral iron staircase to the 
very bottom of the locks, and saw the tracks laid 
on the floors, with the little trains puffing through 
noisily, bearing tons of concrete for the mixers. 

“Think it all over, old man,’’ said Hildreth softly, 
after Worthington had left them. “Begin at the 


HILDRETH’S PLOT 


165 


very start of it all, when the jungle had to be con- 
quered, the fever driven away, and the towns built. 
Think of what has been accomplished in these years 
of American administration — the building of whole 
towns, the bringing to Panama of a new nation, 
with a working system of life!” 

“It is wonderful,” admitted Bob. “I have lived 
and worked with it all, Hildreth, but not until 
to-day have I viewed the work as an outsider 
might, and I feel thrilled with the mightiness of 
it all.” 

They went from point to point, seeing the great 
dam, the spillway over which water was roaring, 
the locks, and every part of the work at Gatun, 
before the tropical darkness fell; and then the day 
shift went off, at five, and the night workers came 
on, for at Gatun the work goes on without cessation. 
The thousands of electric lights strung from place 
to place, and extending across the dam, flashed 
into existence, and the scene was like fairyland, with 
gnomes and pygmies at work in the abysmal depths 
of the lock chambers. 

“It has been a wonderful revelation!” breathed 
Bayliss, as they hurried to catch the seven-o’clock 
train for Colon. “ It is well worth a trip to Panama 
just to see it. I have become used to Culebra Cut, 
but I never dreamed that Gatun was so enormous 
a project.” 

Hildreth was well satisfied. He had suspected 
that Bayliss, like others at work on the Big Ditch, 
had been so engrossed with his own job that he had 


166 


THE LAST DITCH 


never taken the time to view the Canal building as 
an entirety, considering the years of preparation, 
the sanitation, and other aspects. Once Bayliss 
caught the magnitude of it all, as Hildreth had done 
from the old-timer, there was hope. It seemed 
strange that Hildreth, with his bitterness of exile, 
should be striving to make an American of Bob 
Bayliss, who was working to make a man of the 
Ballard collegian! 

“As a finishing. touch,” laughed Carvel, when 
they were on the train and flying through the dark 
jungle, “we shall stroll over Colon, with its squalor 
and indolence, and see what a difference there is 
between the American towns and the native places.” 

“ I think I understand things better,” said Bayliss 
slowly. “I haven’t a country yet, but if I could 
choose, I know which one would do for me!” 


CHAPTER XXVII 


KIDNAPED IN COLON 

TT was dark when the train rattled past Lion 
^ Hill, Tiger Hill, Monkey Hill, past the repair 
shops outside of Cristobal, skirting the edge of the 
American town itself, and sliding down the Avenida 
del Frente, Colon, to the railroad station. Hildreth, 
looking out at the lighted thoroughfare, recalled 
the events that had followed in bewildering suc- 
cession since the moment when he found he had 
missed the special bearing Coming and Bayliss 
away: the night with the old-timer, the loss of his 
money, the lottery ticket, with his joy at winning, 
the cmel disappointment in Panama City, and 
then the meeting with Bob. 

Somehow, except for the moment of bitterness 
when Bill Rosslyn had refused to shake hands, 
misery which the manly Yale chap had erased later, 
things seemed to have been brighter after the loss 
of the lottery. He had lost all of his old reckless 
attitude toward life, his supercilious scorn of work 
and of those who had to make their own way. He 
had mingled with purposeful men, he had breathed 
the fine atmosphere of the Canal achievement, and 
best, he had learned to love work. 

“Let’s take a stroll over Colon,” suggested Bob, 
as they sauntered across to the brilliantly lighted 


167 


168 


THE LAST DITCH 


Avenida del Frente, a blaze of continuous brilliance, 
for crowds of Americans had come in from the 
Canal, to be on hand for the big meet at Cristobal 
the next day. 

Bob was strangely silent as they pushed through 
the crowds on the street; past the Chinese and 
Japanese curio shops, the Jewish clothing stores, 
the Greek restaurants, and the noisy cafes. On 
past the Lotterie de Panama they strolled, and 
Hildreth laughed as he remembered his happiness 
at having, as he had thought, won the prize. He 
thought of the rivalry with steam shovel 25, the 
joy of feeding the fires of 33, with big Bill Rosslyn 
grinning from the boom, and Mr. MacNamara in 
the engine room. He would have missed all that 
had he won the lottery; he would have been the 
same indolent, heedless Hildreth, of Ballard! 

The Panamanian town was a great beehive now, 
throbbing with life; Saturday night had been 
pushed back, for the Commission had ordered a 
holiday in honor of the big meet. A “congress of 
nations” surged along the sidewalks, with Ameri- 
cans, sailors from the shipping of Colon, Panama- 
nians, Spaniards, Barbadoes and Jamaican negroes, 
Greeks, and orientals. Music sounded in the 
cafes, with loud talking and singing; the lottery 
women called their wares in high, cracked voices, 
and Hildreth thrilled with a scene old to Bayliss. 

“Colon was knee-deep in mud before the Ameri- 
cans came,” remarked Bob, as they turned down a 
side street, with barnlike houses on each side, some 


KIDNAPED IN COLON 


169 


with double porches, and dark stairways running 
up from the pavement. “But it is n’t so fine even 
now, when we have installed sewers, electric lights, 
and telephones. Here we are in the cantina dis- 
trict, the vilest of Colon.” 

The noise and confusion on the Avenida del 
Frente had been that of business and commerce; 
here, on the Calle de Paez, there came sounds of 
revelry, the shouts of drunken men, and the tinkling 
of musical instruments, with the notes of a ribald 
song. There was the clinking of glasses behind 
the swinging doors, the harsh echoes of quarreling 
voices, and a mad unrest surged through the whole 
section, as on the night that Hildreth had helped 
Billy Long. 

American sailors and soldiers passed along the 
narrow street, the little Panamanian policemen 
sauntered past, or idly looked at the scenes of riot 
and confusion. There seemed to be a dozen fights 
in progress at once, yet the brave police force of 
Colon remained discreetly away from the turmoil, 
when Americans were concerned in it. 

“What a lawless town!” shuddered Hildreth. 
“Murder and arson seem to haunt the streets! 
Let’s get out of here and go to Cristobal, before we 
are robbed or assaulted!” 

They had gone some distance down the side 
street, which ended aimlessly in a stretch of sandy, 
water-soaked land outside of Colon. Now, when 
they turned to retrace their steps toward the better 
lighted business section, they were confronted by 

12 


170 


THE LAST DITCH 


four men, dark Panamanians, who blocked their 
way. Bayliss stepped back against the side of the 
house to let them pass, but they paused before the 
two fellows, and by the malignant expression on 
their faces. Bob knew they were in for trouble. 

“Well?” demanded Hildreth angrily. “What do 
you want? Let us get past.” 

“Eet ees you we want!” said one of the four. 
“Will you come with us in peace, or must we make 
eet that you come? See, we haf peestols; one 
shout, and we put ze holes in you! Will you come, 
now? ” ’ 

The street at that point was dark and deserted, 
and there seemed to be no help near, while the 
revolvers pointed ominously at their hearts. It was 
useless to resist the weapons, though the collegians 
felt sure they could have fought off the little Pana- 
manians and made their escape under ordinary 
conditions. The only course to pursue was to give 
themselves up to their captors and await a better 
opportunity to escape. 

Memories of what he had read concerning the dark 
Panamanian dungeons came to Hildreth’s mind, 
tales of the rank injustice done to American prisoners, 
left to rot in their underground cells, without ever 
a chance of escape. He knew the enmity of the 
Panamanians toward the Americans, and for a 
moment he thought a fight would be better than 
captivity. But he realized that they were in a 
deserted place, where they could be shot down 
without their captors being caught. 


KIDNAPED IN COLON 


171 


“We’ll have to go with you,” said Bob, in a rage, 
“but you can bet that when Colonel Goethals hears 
of this there will be trouble for your insignificant 
little republic! If you want our money, take it, 
and let us go.” 

“We not want ze money,” said the spokesman of 
the kidnaping party. “We haf you two, and that 
is what we want! Turn around and march along 
ze street till I say halt. March!” 

Not caring to start an argument with four loaded 
revolvers held by hotheaded, lawless Panamanians, 
the two Americans obeyed, and the six marched 
along the street; past the cantinas they strode, with 
the four Panamanians around them. At last a 
dark, ramshackle structure reared its ungainly, 
two-porched height before them, and they were 
commanded to halt. They stood at the foot of a 
stairway that went from the pavement to the dark, 
mysterious regions above. 

“Up!” was the command. Then, as they hesi- 
tated, “Queeck, or we shoot!” 

There was nothing to do but obey, no matter 
what fate awaited them in the black darkness before 
them. They stumbled fearfully up the shaking, 
rickety stairs into the silent gloom above, with their 
hearts pounding at a great rate, for their destination 
was unknown. They could ascribe no reason for 
the high-handed kidnaping unless they were to be 
held for ransom, or murdered and put out of the 
way. They were pushed roughly into a room, and 
a second later a light flashed on. 


172 


THE LAST DITCH 


Their four captors wore black masks, but had they 
not been disguised it would have been hard for 
Hildreth to identify them anywhere, for to him all 
the Panamanians looked alike. But Bob surveyed 
them closely as they closed the door. After a 
hurried conversation between two of them in 
Spanish, the other two left the room. Those 
who remained, seated themselves on the floor, 
revolvers in hand, and kept a close watch on 
the prisoners. 

“Well!” ejaculated Bob. “Of all the cool, 
outrageous proceedings! What under the sun do 
they want of us, anyway? I wish I could talk their 
jabber. I’d tell them what I think of them, one 
and all!” 

“Let’s yell!” suggested Carvel. “Perhaps some 
one will hear us, and come to our assistance. Any- 
thing is better than this suspense.” 

“No use,” returned Bayliss quickly. “We are 
in a section of Colon where murder can be done and 
no one will care a snap. Besides, if we shout, these 
bandits may shoot. No, we have plenty of time to 
match our American brains against the cunning of 
these Latin- Americans, so let’s keep cool.” 

An hour dragged by, then there came the sound 
of feet on the wooden stairs. The door shook as a 
series of knocks came, evidently a signal, and this 
time three figures, all masked, entered the room. 
One of them was smaller than the others, and 
instantly a sudden suspicion flashed on the mind of 
Bob Bayliss. 


KIDNAPED IN COLON 


173 


“ Pedro Nunez ! ” he cried. Take off that mask, 
you sneak! I know who you are! You hid your 
ugly face, but you forgot to cover that scar on your 
right hand! L^t us out of here, or you will suffer! ” 

“Bah!” panted the Panamanian, tearing the black 
handkerchief from his face. “What care I eef you 
know who eet ees? I said that you, Bayliss, would 
not run in ze race to-morrow, and now you see I keep 
my word. These men shall guard you to-night, 
and in ze morning you shall be bound. After ze 
international race is won by me for ze Republic 
of Panama, you are free!” 

“But,” argued Hildreth craftily, “I am not to 
run in that race, Nunez. What is the use of trussing 
me up, when I am not against you? Let me go, 
but keep Bayliss, if you will.” 

Pedro Nunez laughed loudly. 

“You Americans sink we Panamanians haf not 
ze brain!” he chuckled. “You would not gif ze 
alarm, oh, no! You would not haf ze Canal Zone 
poleece down here in an hour, eh? No! You are 
in ze bad company with Bayliss, and you stay here 
till I haf won ze race!” 

The Panamanian runner gave some directions 
to his men in Spanish, and they listened with atten- 
tion. It was evident that Nunez, senior, must be 
a man of much importance in the bitter politics 
of Panama, for his son was obeyed without ques- 
tion by his four henchmen. 

Nunez paused at the door for a farewell fling at 
his prisoners. 


174 


THE LAST DITCH 


“There ees many a slip, eh?” he reminded taunt- 
ingly. “Remember eet when ze time for ze race 
comes to-morrow! Ze Republic of Panama shall 
cross ze line a winner, while ze great United States 
of America, where ees he? A captive in ze power 
of Pedro Nunez! Adios, Americans!” 

He was gone, leaving Bob and Hildreth to writhe 
in helpless rage. For a moment Bay liss was tempted 
to rush the guards, despite the threatening revolvers, 
but his cooler judgment prevailed, and he restrained 
his desire to attempt such a reckless action. Two 
of the Panamanians, who had evidently been hired 
by Nunez only for the capture, went out, but the 
others remained. 

“Maybe they will go to sleep,” whispered Bay- 
liss, “and then we can get away. I have got to be 
in that race to-morrow, Hildreth! I will never let 
that rascally little Panamanian get away with such 
a deed as this! I am going to run in that race! I 
must win!” 

One of the guards left the room for a few minutes, 
returning with a coil of stout rope, which he touched 
significantly as he remarked with a triumphant smile: 

“To-night, senores, we guard you. To-morrow, 
when eet ees time for Nunez to win ze race, ze 
ropes keep your anger down!” 

“They will tie us!” exclaimed Hildreth angrily. 
“Then we shall never get out in time for the race. 
Bob! What are we to do? ” 

“Just wait!” counseled Bayliss, with determina- 
tion in his face. “If Pedro Nunez thinks that his 


KIDNAPED IN COLON 


175 


Panamanian wits can beat the brains and grit of 
two native-born Americans, he will be badly fooled, 
Hildreth. It ’s the United States of America against 
the Republic of Panama, and we must win out!” 

Bayliss did not see the gleam of satisfaction that 
shone in Hildreth’s eyes at this brave declaration. 
Then the Ballard collegian turned over and went to 
sleep as peacefully as though the reputation of his 
country were not at stake, but Bob Bayliss sat still, 
staring at the two Panamanian guards, and thinking 
hard of some way to escape in time to win the 
international quarter-mile for — 


CHAPTER XVIII 


THE ESCAPE 

F or a long time Bob Bayliss sat with his back 
against the bare boards that formed the wall 
of the room; there was no plaster, and, like all the 
tropical houses, no window sashes or glass. It was 
about eleven o’clock now, and all the confusion of 
Colon floated through the open windows, with the 
riot from the cantinas, the singing, and the twanging 
of guitars. The two Panamanians sat by the door, 
one asleep while the other kept his vigil with the 
revolvers, and Hildreth still slumbered. 

But there was no sleep for Bayliss, for too much 
depended on his escaping from that house where 
the cunning of Nunez had entrapped him and Carvel. 
He knew that what Pedro had said he would execute, 
if possible, and that they would not be set free until 
after the Cristobal track meet, where the Y. M. C. A. 
clubs would compete for a cup, and the interna- 
tional quarter-mile originated by Mr. MacDonald 
would cause intense rivalry and enthusiasm. 

A thousand thoughts went fleeting through his 
mind as he sat in the bare room of the deserted 
house on the Calle de Paez, striving to coax slumber 
to his wide-open eyes. For the first time in all his 
stay in the Canal Zone, he had been able to get 
outside of his work, and to view the Big Job with 
the unprejudiced eyes of a stranger; he had become 


176 


THE ESCAPE 


177 


so accustomed to working in Culebra Cut that its 
magnificence had dimmed, but the sight of Gatun 
had been a revelation. 

Now he saw vividly the great gash laid open on 
the face of Nature, where the Americans had cut 
through the mountains to make a passage for the 
ships of all nations. The smoky, noisy scenes 
came back to him, and he understood the magnitude 
of the conquest, in which he had had his humble 
part; he linked it with Gatun, with Miraflores, 
Pedro Miguel, and with the years of preparation 
for work in the Canal Zone of Panama. He summed 
up the sanitation, the excavation, the making of a 
new nation in the jungle, the implanting of a social 
system, and as his mind grasped the whole mar- 
velous achievement, instead of thinking of the Cut 
alone, because it was his own sphere, he felt as 
Hildreth had in the Palace Hotel at Colon, when 
the old-timer graphically made him see what the 
pioneers had suffered. 

With this first comprehending of the Big Job, the 
dawning on him of its vast detail and completeness, 
with the power of its head. Colonel Goethals, and 
the mastery of the officials, the engineers, surveyors, 
and all of the Canal Zone army over seemingly insur- 
mountable natural obstacles, came a flash of admira- 
tion for the nation that gave birth to such giants of 
mind and muscle. He began to see why the name 
“American” means achievement and prowess all 
over the world, a nation of men, dauntless and brave. 

Bayliss’ position was a natural one, resulting from 


178 


THE LAST DITCH 


the way he had been brought up. Away from the 
United States from his second year until he came 
back to enter Hamilton College, he could not be 
expected to feel any love for the nation of his father. 
It would require some great influence to create this, 
and now it seemed that the mighty power and spell 
of the Big Job would accomplish it. 

He started with a new thought; surely, it would 
never do for Nunez to succeed in his plot to keep 
the United States, the builder of the Panama Canal, 
from being represented in the international race 
that the Games Committee had planned for the track 
meet at Cristobal! A nation that had done such 
marvelous work in the Canal Zone must never be 
beaten by a one-horse republic like Panama. He 
was the one on whom the loyal Americans pinned 
their hopes of victory! 

“I must escape and run for the United States!” 
he told himself. ‘‘It is not my country, of course, 
for I never had one, but we can’t let that little 
Spiggoty defeat us. The United States of America 
has built the Canal, and Panama simply shan’t beat 
such a nation in a track meet!” 

Yet there seemed to be no hope of escape before 
the time when Nunez should see fit to free them. 
The hours of the night wore slowly on, the noise of 
Colon lessened a trifle, and still the Panamanians 
alternated on guard, taking turns at napping. 
Hildreth was sleeping as peacefully as though he 
were in his cot at Culebra, for he felt there was 
nothing that could be done. 


THE ESCAPE 


179 


But into Bob’s heart there had crept a great 
admiration for the United States, and he was wild 
to make his escape and foil the treacherous Nunez 
by running in the event, and winning for the Stars 
and Stripes. He felt confident of his ability to 
defeat the Panamanian, for the night of the chase at 
Ancon had shown him he possessed more speed; 
then, Pedro had confessed a fear of him alone, 
boasting of his ability to defeat the other runners 
in the event. 

Gradually the light of dawn crept in at the window, 
and Carvel Hildreth at last opened his eyes and 
yawned. He stretched himself luxuriantly, not 
awake enough to realize that he was not in the 
bachelor quarters at Culebra, then he gazed bewil- 
deredly at Bayliss, who had not slept all night and 
who was still wide-eyed with anger and an eagerness 
to escape. 

“I wonder if we are to get any breakfast?” in- 
quired Hildreth, when the memory of what had 
happened returned to him. “Since we are not to 
be murdered in cold blood or flung into a Spiggoty 
dungeon, I am hungry. Is it a part of Nunez’s 
plans to make us fast because of our sins against 
him? I’d like to have that little wretch in my 
hands now!” 

“The meet is at ten o’clock this morning,” 
groaned Bob, “and it must be about six now. 
Hildreth, I have been thinking hard all night, and 
I must win that race! I — I want to make the 
United States a winner for what the nation has 


180 


THE LAST DITCH 


done here in the Canal Zone; I can’t stand back 
and see the Stars and Stripes lose out to a little, 
quarter-size republic!” 

“That's the spirit!” exulted Hildreth. “Spoken 
like a true American, old man! I knew my plot 
would make you love the U. S. A. ! Now for a way 
to outwit these imitation guards.” 

Some time in the night the guard had aroused 
his companion, and now both were awake. An 
idea came to Bayliss, and he called to one of the 
Panamanians. 

“Say,” he began pleadingly, “don’t we eat this 
morning, Spiggoty? Chase out and round us up 
a meal, will you? I’ll see that it is worth your 
trouble.” 

The greed of the guards for American money was 
too much, and after a short consultation the one 
addressed came back to the captives. 

“There ees but one way,” he said. “My fren’ 
and I must tie you Americans so you will not escape 
for ze race. Then we go out and get you some fo^ 
to eat, fruit and bread, maybe. Eef you are willing 
that we should tie you while we leave ze room, eh? ” 

“Let it go at that,” consented Bayliss, prodding 
Hildreth as a signal for agreement, for he understood 
that the Panamanians’ consultation had been a 
quarrel as to who should go on the errand, resulting 
in this decision for both to go. “And be sure to 
get a lot of stuff, for we are hungry.” 

While the awakened guard stood near with 
revolvers, the other took the rope and trussed the 


THE ESCAPE 


181 


prisoners up until they were powerless; he made 
them doubly secure by tying their hands behind 
their backs, and then making the end of the rope 
fast to their bound ankles, a method of Indian 
tying that is absolutely impossible to untie on the 
part of the victim. It was evident that he knew 
his business, for he laughed with pride as he sur- 
veyed his work. 

“Maybe we haf time to stop in ze cafe, Ramon?” 
he suggested. “ Thees rope never get untied. We 
stay so long as we like, eh? Me, I smoke ze cigar 
Nunez gif me.” 

He lighted a vile smelling cigar, blowing the smoke 
carelessly into the faces of the prisoners; enjoying 
this pastime a few seconds, he was interrupted by 
his companion, who snatched the cigar from his 
lips and flung it to the floor with an exclamation 
of anger. 

‘ ‘ Fool ! ” he breathed. ‘ ‘ Thees house ees suppose’ 
to be empty! Ze poleece see ze smoke from ze 
window — he sink eet ees a fire! People come to 
thees room, and then ze Republic of Panama lose 
ze race by Nunez!” 

Still protesting volubly, the other Panamanian 
followed him from the room, and the Americans 
heard them tiptoe down the creaking stairs. Then 
Bayliss, who was lying with his face to the rough 
floor, whispered excitedly: 

“Hildreth! Are you game for a risky trial at 
an escape? Good! Roll over with your back to 
me; I’ll try to get that cigar in my mouth before 


182 


THE LAST DITCH 


it goes out, and I’ll bum your wrist ropes through. 
Once your hands are free — ” 

He rolled over until his face was near the end of 
the cigar, and then began a performance of balancing 
and gymnastics that would have been hilarious under 
less serious circumstances. Time and again he 
tried to get the cigar end between his lips, but still 
it eluded him. Finally he got it pushed against 
the wall, and a second later he had it in his teeth, 
puffing away lustily. 

For a moment it seemed that even this forlorn 
hope was gone, for the cigar was almost out. Bayliss 
had seldom smoked, but he drew away now with 
vigor, and a cry burst from Hildreth as it began 
to send forth jets of smoke; fortunately, the Pana- 
manian had thrown it down as soon as it was lighted, 
90 there was a long roll yet to be burned. 

“Try not to yell if it hurts,” said Bayliss, as he 
rolled over behind his chum. “We have got to 
get away now, or not until it is too late! There, 
I am almost through one rope.” 

“I have a knife in my pocket,” returned Hil- 
dreth, as he set his teeth to endure the pain of the 
bum that must come when Bob tried the last rope. 
“Get my hands free, and we are safe!” 

It was a painfully slow operation, and they feared 
the Panamanians would come back before the ropes 
were burned through, but the guards had faith in 
the ropes, with good cause, and were taking their 
time. Gradually the cigar burned toward its end, 
and the ropes parted, strand by strand; at last 


THE ESCAPE 


183 


Carvel’s hands were fiee from his ankles, and but 
a strand remained to be parted. He strained at it 
wildly, it parted, and the hot end of the cigar made 
him wince, but his hands were free! 

“Good!” he exulted. “Now, Bob, roll close, and 
I’ll cut your bonds with the knife I have in my 
pocket!” 

It took some time to extricate the knife from his 
pocket, for the ropes still bound his body, but he 
succeeded and in a few seconds he had slashed Bob’s 
ropes, and Bayliss was free. Then he cut the bonds 
of his chum, and they arose to stretch their cramped 
limbs before hurrying from the house. 

“Hurry!” panted Hildreth, in alarm. “We have 
been a long time. Bob, and they will be returning 
soon. Listen — they are coming now. We are too 
late!” 

They looked at each other in dismay. Was all 
their ingenuity to go for nothing, because they had 
been a few instants too long? On the stairs re- 
sounded footfalls, and their spirits sank as they 
waited. 

“There is only one of them, Hildreth!” muttered 
Bob. “He won’t suspect us of being free. Get 
on one side of the door, and I’ll get behind it. 
When he opens it, make a fierce dive tackle at his 
knees and upset him ; I ’ll pile on, and get his revolver 
if I can. It’s our only chance, old man. Are you 
game?” 

“Yes!” declared Hildreth, his heart pounding 
with excitement. “ I ’ll hit him harder than I ever 


184 


THE LAST DITCH 


hit a football line at Ballard, Bob. Steady, now — 

The footsteps came nearer, and the Panamanian 
ceased climbing the stairs; he was crossing the 
landing to the door, humming lightheartedly a 
Spanish song, all unconscious of his danger. A 
hand fumbled with the lock, a key turned, and the 
door opened wide, while the Panamanian strode 
into the room, packages in hand. 

At that instant Hildreth shot out as though pro- 
pelled from a catapult, struck the guard at the 
knees with terrific force, and hurled him off his feet, 
flat on his back on the floor. Never was a runner 
tackled more viciously on a football field! With a 
leap. Bob was on him and had wrested the revolver 
from his pocket. The Americans were masters of 
the situation! 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE CHAGRIN OF NUNEZ 

“/^UICK! Drag him into the room!” cried 

Nc Hildreth. “Shoot him if he makes a noise, 
Bob. We must tie him up quickly and get away 
before the other one comes back. He is in some 
cafe near by.” 

“Once on the street, we are safe,” assented Bay- 
liss. “We haven’t time to tie him; pull him into 
the room, and we’ll lock the door. I must get to 
Cristobal to the Y. M. C. A. clubhouse and stay 
there imtil the time for the race, so Nunez won’t 
know I am free.” 

Together they dragged the Panamanian into the 
room, and Bayliss aimed the big revolver at their 
terrified prisoner, for the Spiggoties are deadly 
afraid of Americans at best, and this one thought 
he had helped catch a pair of Tartars the night 
before. 

“This fellow is going to run in that meet,” said 
Hildreth tensely, “if he has to kill you and Nunez 
to get there. Now, if you stick your nose outside 
this house in less than ten minutes, you Spiggoty, 
you will run a risk of getting a bullet in your black 
heart. Understand, you are up against Ameri- 
cans now!” 

The Panamanian shrank against the wall, fully 
185 


13 


186 


THE LAST DITCH 


believing that the revolver was about to go off at 
any moment, so ferocious was the expression on 
the faces of the two vigorous young chaps. Then 
they hurried from the room, locking the door behind 
them, and Bob tied the rope to the knob, making 
the other end fast to a post of the stairway. 

“We are all right now!” he exulted. “Even if 
we do meet the other one on the street, he won’t 
be able to do a thing. I would like to see his face 
when he gets back and finds the birds are flown!” 

“You will enjoy just as pleasant a spectacle, ”s 
reminded Carvel, “when you answer the roll for 
the international quarter-mile, and Pedro Nunez 
sees you step forth.” 

They hurried up the Calle de Paez to the Avenida 
del Frente; as they turned the corner into that busy 
thoroughfare they looked back and saw the other 
Panamanian, his hands full of fruit, hurrying from 
the bazaar toward the house from which they had 
just escaped. Like his companion, he had been 
eager to earn the reward of American gold offered 
by Bob. 

“If only we don’t meet Nunez,” said Bayliss, 
as they crossed the railroad tracks and entered the 
even streets of Cristobal. “I don’t want him to 
know that I am out, for there is no telling what he 
might do in his desperation before the meet.” 

They reached the Y. M. C. A. clubhouse, operated 
by the Commission for Canal Zone employees, on 
Broad Street. The lobby was crowded with athletic 
looking young fellows from the American towns along 


THE CHAGRIN OF NUNEZ 


187 


the Canal, gathering here to dress for their events 
in the big track meet at ten o’clock on Roosevelt 
Avenue. The clubs of Cristobal, Empire, Culebra, 
Gorgona, and Bas Obispo would be represented, 
and as the rivalry among them in baseball, track, 
basketball, and tennis is keen, the competition in 
the various events promised to be exciting. 

But the international quarter-mile, originated by 
secretary MacDonald of the Games Committee, 
was the subject of conversation, and it was evident 
that the idea would provide the excitement and 
amusement craved by the Canal workers. The 
thought of five nations represented by speedy 
sprinters in that event, wearing their national 
colors, while the band played appropriate music, 
was enough to create intense interest. Bayliss 
was greeted with shouts as he and Hildreth entered 
the lobby, for they knew that he was to represent 
the United States against the fastest runners for 
England, France, Sweden, and Panama. 

“ We are betting on you, Bayliss! ” A big fellow 
in a Harvard jersey patted him on the shoulder. 
“The Spiggoties think Nunez is a wonder, and for 
some cause they are putting all their money on 
him, more than I would care to risk even on a marvel 
like you.” 

Hildreth smiled grimly. The reason for the 
heavy betting of the Panamanians was clear to 
him and Bayliss; Nunez, thinking he had the 
American sprinter tied up in the empty house on 
the Calle de Paez, Colon, had advised his friends to 


188 


THE LAST DITCH 


put their money on him, for he was sure of defeat- 
ing the other entrants. Betting in Panama and 
the Canal Zone exists to a deplorable extent, chiefly 
because the monotony of the work makes the 
employees eager for excitement of any kind. 

“Nunez won’t come here to dress,” decided Bob. 
“He will get into his togs in some hotel over in 
Colon. Hello, here are the other fellows who are 
with me in this race, though.” 

They had been hurried to the gymnasium on 
the second floor, now used as a dressing room for 
the athletes in the meet. Here they found Lock- 
wood, Lefevre, and Oleson, already attired in their 
running suits. They greeted Bayliss joyously, 
for they were enthusiastic over the novel race, and 
while each was determined to run his best for his 
country, there was no ill feeling, such as Nunez 
had exhibited. In fact, Pedro’s hatred of the 
Americans was common to all Panamanians, for 
the nine years of the “gringos” in Panama has not 
caused the Spiggoties to love their visitors from 
the north. 

*'Vive la France!'* exclaimed Lefevre excitedly, 
slapping his tri-color jersey. “La belle France 
toujour s!" 

“ Rot! ” said the serious Lockwood with frankness. 
“Frawnce hasn’t a bally bit of a chawnce, don’t 
you know? I am free to say that I believe it will be 
between Bayliss and that Panama chap, Nunez. 
By the way, where is Pedro? I have n’t seen him 
since that night in Panama City, y’ understand.” 


THE CHAGRIN OF NUNEZ 


189 


“Aye tank Aye saw him in Colon yesterday,” 
offered the stolid Oleson. “But Aye have n’t seen 
him since. He will win dis race.” 

“No, he won’t!” Bayliss was so firm that they 
looked at him in surprise, though Hildreth smiled, 
for he alone knew what was on his chum’s mind. 
“The United States of America is going to win this 
event, believe that! I’ll run my legs off before 
that rascal of a Nunez shall make his one-horse- 
power republic win.” 

“One-horse-power?” repeated the young English- 
man. “ Why, you ’re wrong, Bayliss, indeed, you ’re 
quite in error! I assure you there is more than 
one horse in Panama! Think of the cabs in Colon 
and Panama City; the whole locomotive power 
in Panama is the horse, you know!” 

Hildreth was convulsed with laughter, but Bayliss 
soothed Lockwood’s excitement by answering 
soberly: 

“You are right, Lockwood. I never saw it in 
that light before, but you have put it so logically 
that I cannot fail to see it as you do.” 

From time to time the athletes entered in the 
other events came in to encourage Bayliss, and Hil- 
dreth began to get some idea of how much interest 
was taken in this track meet. He realized that it 
would be nothing less than a tragedy if any other 
nation than the United States won this international 
event, and if Panama won — 

“Bob,” he said soberly, “ I have never seen Nunez 
run, but I have seen you beat the best runners of 


190 


THE LAST DITCH 


Ballard. Until now I have regarded this meet as 
an amusement, but I understand that it is taken 
with intense seriousness by the Americans. Of 
course, your event is the only one that foreigners 
will be in, so all the responsibility of winning for 
the United States hangs on you!” 

Mr. MacDonald came in, and handed Bayliss a 
printed program of the meet, which, like all Canal 
Zone track meets, was under the sanction of the 
Amateiu* Athletic Union. It was to Hildreth 
another instance of how thoroughly the United 
States had been reproduced in the Canal Zone of 
Panama. 

“The international quarter is last . ’ ’ Bob scanned 
the list of events. “I guess it will arouse the most 
excitement and enthusiasm. There are a bunch of 
old track and field stars from the States in the other 
events, Hildreth, so you had better get down along 
the avenue for a good sight of the track.” 

Hildreth, who had decided not to enter any of 
the events, as he would not have a chance to get 
into pole vaulting shape, looked at him in surprise. 

“ Why, aren’t you coming with me? ” he inquired. 

“I want to give Nunez a shock when he sees 
me,” laughed Bob. “It will take his breath so he 
won’t be able to run. You go down and see the 
former ’Varsity stars of the States contest again, and 
come for me in time for my event.” 

Oleson, who was massaging a sore tendon, decided 
to go along with Hildreth, and after wra^ing 
himself in his bathrobe, they started from the 


THE CHAGRIN OF NUNEZ 


191 


gymnasium. When they reached the doorway of 
the clubhouse Hildreth saw to his dismay that the 
rain was falling steadily, and that Broad Street was 
already muddy. He was sure that the meet would 
have to be postponed, but Oleson, who had been in 
the Canal Zone for two years, assured him gravely 
that he was mistaken. 

“Dese people in Panama bane tired always," he 
explained. “Anyt’ing like a track running bane 
gude to watch. The rain bane all the time falling, 
and you can’t wait for a gude day. You will find 
a big crowd on the track." 

Other athletes splashed past them, on their way 
to Roosevelt Avenue, which is not macadamized, 
and affords an apology for a running track. Hil- 
dreth had played football in the snow, late in the 
season, but never had he experienced the sight of 
a track meet run off in the heavy tropical downpour 
that now saturated everything in sight. 

"Aye tank we need bathing suits for dis," re- 
marked Oleson, with a near approach to humor, 
"and boats for to ride back to the clubhouse in." 

When the Ballard collegian reached Roosevelt 
Avenue, the wide, palm-shaded driveway that starts 
at the entrance to Cristobal and sweeps around 
along the shore of the Caribbean to the promontory 
by the docks, joining there with Columbus Avenue, 
he saw how badly he had been mistaken in his 
estimate of the Canal Zone people’s interest in the 
track meet. Up and down both sides of the avenue 
for two hundred and twenty yards ropes had been 


192 


THE LAST DITCH 


stretched, making the course, and back of these 
ropes were immense crowds. 

Most of these were Americans, middle-aged men, 
women dressed in white, young girls, and children; 
there were many umbrellas, but a majority of the 
spectators were ready to watch the events unpro- 
tected by anything except raincoats. The porches 
of the Canal Zone houses that line one side of Roose- 
velt Avenue were filled with people, and the houses 
were decorated with American flags. 

A large grandstand had been erected at the finish 
line, and here all the officials of the Canal Zone 
administration sat, while a band played furiously. 
Hildreth saw Colonel Goethals, taking as keen an 
interest in the sports of his workers as in their labor, 
and he understood why every American in Panama 
swears by this master of the whole Big Ditch, 
because he was one of them, entering into their own 
lives. Mr. Bayliss was in the stand, eager to see 
his son represent the United States, and hoping 
for what he had thought vain, that Bob might 
come to love the Stars and Stripes. 

Several thousand people, rain-soaked but enthu- 
siastic, had gathered to see the Canal Zone track 
athletes compete; there were cheers as some star 
made his appearance, jogging up and down the 
course, in the mud that was deepening at every 
moment. Over on the beach jumping standards 
had been erected, and the jumpers and pole vaulters 
slipped and slid as they dashed at the bar for a 
-take-off. 


THE CHAGRIN OF NUNEZ 


193 


It was a strange scene to Hildreth, this track meet 
on the beach of Cristobal, with the blue Caribbean 
stretching out before him, the graceful palm fronds 
waving overhead, the great crowd of enthusiastic 
Americans along the avenue, and the rain falling 
steadily. He had not learned that whatever is to be 
done in Panama is done regardless of the weather, 
for the rain never consults the plans of human 
beings, so a track meet is run when scheduled, for 
a clear day is a rarity. 

There were runners from the universities and 
colleges of the States, men who had been famous 
a few years back. Hildreth saw the Blue of Yale, 
the Crimson of Harvard, the Green of Dartmouth, 
and there was a hurdler from Leland Stanford, a 
pole vaulter from Penn, and a sprinter from Michi- 
gan; all met again in this strange track meet of 
the tropics! In the crowd, groups of fellows got to- 
gether here and there, giving their old ’Varsity 
yells for their former college chums. 

Suddenly Hildreth, pressed against the rope facing 
the beach, heard an exclamation of anger and con- 
sternation from a sprinter who was jogging past, 
and on turning toward the avenue again he saw 
Pedro Nunez, aghast with dismay. 


CHAPTER XX 
bob’s country 

“/^N your marks! Get set! Bang!” 

The first heat of the hundred-yard dash 
was on; five lithe-limbed athletes had crouched on 
the starting line, a chalk mark almost lost in the 
mud; they had tensed their muscles at the second 
command, and when the pistol cracked, they shot 
forward — all but one. The sprinter wearing the 
Red and Blue of Penn slipped with the force of his 
effort, and instead of impressing the spectators with 
his beautiful running form, he made a profound 
impression on the mud of Roosevelt Avenue with 
his face. 

The others, however, found a footing with their 
long spikes, and they sped down the hundred yards 
straightaway; King, the former Colgate crack, 
Farquar of Yale, a stranger from Princeton, and 
the famous Fordham, wearing the Crimson of old 
Harvard. The absence of training, with the months 
in the hot tropics, had taken a lot of their speed, 
but the heat was close, and the great crow'd went 
into raptures when Fordham nosed out King at 
the tape. 

“It’s the greatest sight yet!” breathed Hildreth, 
to whom the scenes of the track meet in the pouring 
rain, which no one seemed to mind, was something 
more wonderful than Culebra Cut, or Gatun, with 


194 


BOB’S COUNTRY 


195 


its locks and dam. At times he had to glance out 
at the rolling Caribbean, or at the dripping palms, 
to convince himself that he was not at the inter- 
collegiates in the States, at Franklin Field or the 
Harvard Stadium, so natural was the sight of the 
jerseys of the runners. 

The hurdle race was an hilariously humorous 
event, for the slippery mud of Roosevelt Avenue 
made it a matter of fortune if the contestants cleared 
the standards or not. One athlete slipped as he 
took off for the fifth hurdle, and struck it with his 
knee, falling flat in the ooze and sliding several 
yards, amid the cheers of the spectators, who wel- 
comed the diversion, and the others picked their 
way down the avenue and over the hurdles like 
dancing masters. 

‘ ‘ Such records ! ’ ’ laughed the collegian. ‘ ‘ T wel ve 
and a fifth for the hundred yards’ dash! Still, 
let some of the Ballard sprinters enter a meet down 
here, with the rain falling and the track a sea of 
mud, and I guess they would do w'orse.” 

Across the avenue, on the sandy beach, the pole 
vaulters were having as much trouble as the runners, 
for the shifting sands afforded a poor place for the 
pole to be planted; and as no landing pit had been 
dug, when the vaulters came down to earth it was 
usually with a jar. Yet Hildreth noticed that all 
the athletes entered into the spirit of the meet with 
zest, striving to give their best performance under 
the miserable conditions. It was the spirit of the 
Big Job, applied to this track meet in the tropics. 


196 


THE LAST DITCH 


As the events were run off in order, affording more 
amusement as the mud of the track made the going 
harder, Hildreth began to think of the crowning 
race of all, the international quarter, and he decided 
to go back to the clubhouse and come down with 
Bayliss. He was elated at the success, so far, of 
his plan in showing Bob the work at Gatun, and 
in getting the Canal worker to feel the magnificence 
of the nation for which he was giving his time and 
effort, and he felt sure that once the race started, 
Bayliss would run his best for the United States. 

Rain-soaked, bedraggled athletes jogged past him 
up Broad Street, returning from their events to 
the dressing rooms, bespattered with mud, but 
cheerful with it all. It was a matter of surprise 
to Hildreth that the wretched weather did not 
take the energy and ambition out of them, but now 
that he had seen the marvelous interest taken in 
the meet by both contestants and spectators, for 
specials had brought thousands to it, he began to 
understand. 

He found Bayliss and Mr. MacDonald in the 
gymnasium at the Y. M. C. A. clubhouse; Bayliss 
was in his running togs, a finely built sprinter, and 
the secretary handed Hildreth a sash of red, white, 
and blue as he entered. 

“Here," he said, “tie that on your friend, Hil- 
dreth. Bob, don’t let the United States be defeated 
here in the Canal Zone, where we are building the 
Big Ditch. Think of the thousands of Americans 
who will cheer for you; remember that it is your 


BOB’S COUNTRY 


197 


country for which you are running, and win!” 

“My country!” repeated Bayliss, but this time 
Hildreth noticed that he said it reflectively, and 
there was no bitterness in his tone. 

When they had jogged back to Roosevelt Avenue, 
the last event before Bob’s, the mile run, had just 
been finished, and the vast crowd was astir for the 
race of the five nationalities. It was a novel event, 
and the excitement that it created was sufficient 
reward for Mr. MacDonald, who had originated it 
to entertain the Canal Zone employees and their 
families. 

There was a tremendous outburst of applause 
when the event was announced through big mega- 
phones, and the band blared forth a medley of 
national airs. Then the clerk of the course stepped 
forward to call the names of the entrants, and the 
nations they represented. 

“Sweden — CarlOleson!” The blond young fel- 
low answered, “Present,” and was given a generous 
round of clapping. 

“France — Jean Lefevre!” The vivacious little 
Frenchman cried, “Vive la France!” and was 
cheered loudly by the amused spectators. 

“ England — Arthur Lockwood ! ” called the clerk, 
and the English youth answered, receiving his 
meed of attention from the impartial crowd. 

“The Republic of Panama — Pedro Nunez!” 

As the Panamanian stepped out and bowed, for 
the benefit of the few hundred of his country- 
men who had come to see him win the money 


198 


THE LAST DITCH 


of the Americans for them, there was a howl from 
the Spiggoties, for his speed was well known in 
the Canal Zone. There was a hush, and then the 
clerk of the course, with a thrill in his voice, called 
distinctly — 

“The United States of America— Robert Bay- 
liss!” 

The band began playing “The Star Spangled 
Banner,” the immense crowd roared forth its patri- 
otic encouragement, and Bayliss’ response was lost 
in the noise; Hildreth was watching with amuse- 
ment the conflicting emotions of anger, dismay, 
and chagrin that crossed the dark face of Pedro 
Nunez. Though he had been somewhat prepared 
.for this by the sight of Carvel, he was yet mystified 
at the escape of his prisoners. 

The five quarter-milers lined up at the starting' 
line in front of the grandstand, which would also 
be the finish of the race, as they must run two 
hundred and twenty yards down Roosevelt Avenue, 
make a sharp turn in the width of the driveway, 
and sprint the same distance back to the tape. 
There was no chance of fast time being made, for 
the mud made the going dangerous, and the turn 
would knock off what speed the runners had at the 
end of the first lap. 

“The race won’t be to the swift,” warned Hil- 
dreth, “but to the fellow who keeps his head, his 
feet, and his wind. Just make your stride sure. 
Bob, and don’t risk slipping in the mud. Go in to 
win — for your country!” 


BOB’S COUNTRY 


199 


At the starter’s command, for he raised the 
revolver behind the runners as they knelt on their 
marks, the crowd subsided into breathless expec- 
tancy, and Bob grimly dug his spikes into the clay- 
ish mud. Here was a race where the crowd could 
unite in its partisanship for a country, instead of 
dividing into cohorts for the various Y. M. C. A. 
club runners, and if Bayliss failed to give them a 
chance to cheer for a victory — 

The pistol cracked, and Bayliss shot forward 
quickly, slipping a trifle, but keeping his footing; 
Oleson and Lockwood, both heavily built athletes, 
nearly fell at the start, but the little Panamanian 
was like a squirrel, and he jumped into the lead 
with a quickness that was startling, and that brought 
cheers from the admiring but anxious Spiggoties. 
Down the avenue, through the mud and water, sped 
the five runners, between the long lines of cheering 
spectators, with Nunez three yards in the lead. 

Bayliss, running second, dreaded the sharp turn 
at the end of the two hundred and twenty yards, 
for it meant the breaking of his perfect stride and 
the loss of his speed. With the rain beating in his 
face, he remembered Hildreth’s warning, and con- 
tented himself with keeping Nunez from gaining a 
big lead; there would be time enough for sprinting 
when the turn was made, and it was seen whether 
Pedro would keep up his pace. 

Close behind him Oleson and Lockwood were 
poimding, both valiantly fighting for their countries, 
but hopelessly outclassed by the speed of the 


200 


THE LAST DITCH 


American and Panamanian representatives. Pedro 
Nunez, short of build, had a distinct advantage 
over Bayliss, who was afraid to lengthen his stride 
lest he slip and fall, losing the race. 

The Panamanian, having the lead, made the turn 
first, and was starting back up the avenue as Bayliss 
finished the lap. So dense was the crowd, and so 
cleverly did the treacherous Panamanian turn the 
trick, that before the American realized his purpose 
he had tripped Bob, and sent him sprawling in the 
mud. It was a cowardly act, and for a moment 
Bayliss was dazed, but some one pulled him to his 
feet and gave him a push forward. 

“Beat the scoundrel!” yelled Hildreth, wild with 
anger. “Head him once and he will quit. Run — 
for the United States!” 

The words sent a mighty thrill through Bayliss. 
He was running for the United States, for the nation 
that had done the marvelous work of preparation 
in the Canal Zone, that had effected sanitation where 
pestilence reigned, built whole towns after conquer- 
ing a virgin jungle, and that was now bringing to 
success the greatest feat of modern ages, the mar- 
riage of two oceans. This country had not failed, 
nor must its representative fail in this race. He was 
running for the Stars and Stripes! But Nunez, for 
Panama, was ten yards ahead, and on the last lap! 

He was amazed at the speed of Nunez, for he had 
not run so fast on the night of the pursuit in Ancon. 
Perhaps fear had unnerved him then so that he 
could not sprint; now, at least, he was running in 


BOB’S COUNTRY 


201 


a wonderful manner and Bayliss sprinted in a vain 
effort to come abreast of him, though he gained two 
yards. 

Now the wildly yelling Americans, thoroughly 
patriotic, were imploring Bob all along the lines to 
finish first, to uphold the honor of his nation, for 
it was a vital thing to them in that moment. Men 
and women called to him, begging him to go faster, 
to head the flying little Panamanian and take the 
Stars and Stripes over the finish line a winner! 

Suddenly Bayliss caught sight of the finish line 
ahead, where the white tape stretched invitingly 
across Roosevelt Avenue. Some one was standing 
back of the line, waving madly a large American 
flag, and his heart gave a leap as he saw it. After 
all, the thought rushed on his mind as he ran, it 
was the land of his birth, and he knew, after seeing 
the Canal, that it was the greatest country of all! 

He felt a sudden fierce pride in the Stars and 
Stripes that girdled his waist; he knew that he 
loved the United States at last, that he had found 
his country in this hour. He must not let his land 
be defeated by the treachery of little Nunez; Old 
Glory must wave triumphant in the rain after the 
race had ended. 

He started a steady sprint, making every stride 
sure. Now he was not running for individual 
glory, or for revenge on Nunez because of his treach- 
ery in trying to keep him from the race, for tripping 
him at the turn; he was not running because he 
admired the United States and wanted to keep her 


14 


202 


THE LAST DITCH 


from being beaten by a little republic like Panama. 
He was sprinting his fastest because he was repre- 
senting his country, because into his heart, at sight 
of the flag beyond the finish line, had leaped a great 
love for the United States — a true patriotism! 

They were fifty yards from the finish now, slipping 
through the mud and floundering along between the 
yelling, cheering, and leaping crowds. Nunez was 
a bare yard in the lead, for Bob’s sprint had grad- 
ually cut down the intervening distance, and the 
Panamanian was growing windblown and tired. 
The fearful condition of the track made speed out 
of the question, and it had worn on the endurance 
of the two leaders so that they panted hoarsely, 
their breath coming in great sobs. 

The band struck up “The Star Spangled Banner,” 
and it gave new strength to Bob’s weary limbs. 
He remembered what he was running for, and he 
clenched his teeth, gripping his hands for a final 
effort. It was his country, the United States of 
America, the land that he had come to love at last, 
the nation of his birth, and he must win, or die in 
the attempt! 

A few yards more, staggering almost helplessly 
through the mud, and Bayliss came abreast of the 
struggling Nunez. He remembered what Carvel 
had shouted about the Panamanian quitting when 
he was once passed, and he threw all his remaining 
strength into a lurch that sent him reeling a few 
inches in the lead, amid the deafening shouts of 
the Americans, and the blare of the band. He saw 


BOB’S COUNTRY 


203 


a look of despair come to the dark, distorted face 
of the Panamanian, and he knew the race was won. 

Staggering, falling, for ten yards more, and he 
tumbled across the tape, breaking it with his chest 
as he slid blindly into the mud at his feet. He felt 
strong 'arms raise him, he was borne aloft on the 
shoulders of several men, and carried around by the 
admiring Americans, while the band played national 
airs and the crowd shouted its joy and exultation. 

The gentleman who had waved the big American 
flag back of the line came rushing through the 
crowd, and Bayliss saw with surprise that it was 
his father! The silk hat of the Canal Zone officieii 
had been smashed by an ecstatic employee, but 
his face was one big smile of joy. 

“My son!’’ he exclaimed, as Bob fought his way 
to earth. “You could not have won such a race 
unless you were an American! You must have 
the love of your own country at last!” 

“You are right. Dad!” returned Bob warmly, 
as he shook his father’s hand. “ I am an American, 
heart, body, and soul, and I am happy!” 

Back in the dressing room at the Y. M. C. A. 
gymnasium, when Hildreth was able to talk cohe- 
rently for joy, he congratulated his chum on his 
newborn love for the United States, and informed 
him that England was second, France third, Sweden 
fourth, and Panama, in the shape of Pedro Nunea, 
quit a yard from the tape when he saw Bayliss 
had won, and walked from the track. 

Slowly, Bayliss took off the sash of Stars and 


204 


THE LAST DITCH 


Stripes, mud-bedraggled and drenched, and laid 
it on the bench at his side. 

“I saw the American flag Dad waved,” he ex- 
plained, “and it made me feel I just had to win, or 
die. I never felt that way before, Hildreth; I 
admired the United States after I had seen the 
Gatun work, but this was a different sensation, a 
great love for my country, and when it came to me 
I knew I should win. 

” I know now. Dad, that the United States is my 
country, and that if one has been born an American 
he will have that love for his native land somewhere 
in his heart, and some day it will be fanned into 
life, as mine was to-day. I am an American, and 
I love the United States!” 

Hildreth was strangely silent as Mr. Bayliss 
joyously put a hand on the shoulder of his son, and 
Bob understood; now that the excitement was over, 
and Bayliss had lost his bitterness, had found a 
country, the Ballard collegian was remembering 
that football game, and that he was practically an 
exile from the United States. 

Into Bob’s mind a wonderful plan crept, a great 
idea that was to shape itself into a definite plan 
for the redemption of Carvel Hildreth, so that he 
might gain the moral courage to go back to Ballard 
College, facing the ostracism and scorn he had fled, 
and win his fight there, to be recognized by his 
father, and to win the manhood that should be his! 


Part IV 


CHAPTER XXI 

BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 

O N the Monday after the big track meet of 
Canal Zone employees a thorough search 
from the terminal docks at Cristobal to the Sea Wall 
of Panama City would not have revealed a more 
happy fellow than Bob Bayliss. Before the night 
when he and Carvel Hildreth had met Mr. Mac- 
Donald, secretary of the Games Committee, at 
the University Club, the knowledge that he was 
without a coimtry oppressed him with the thought 
of the sorrow it caused his father. 

Now everything was different, and the man who 
dared to speak sneeringly of the Stars and Stripes 
would have a fight with Bayliss on his hands, for 
the young fellow was a true American at last. The 
sight of the great work at Gatun, with the gradual 
realization of the stupendous accomplishment of 
the nation which had created the Canal Zone, the 
treachery of Nunez, putting in peril the chances of 
the United States in the race, and last, the thrilling 
race itself, with each entrant giving his best for 
his country, had converted Bob. 

He was stiff and sore on Monday morning when 
he stepped out on the upper screened porch of their , 


205 


206 


THE LAST DITCH 


bachelor quarters house at Culebra, where Coming 
was already standing, gazing down into the smoky 
chasm of the Cut. Bayliss, now that he had left 
his trouble in the past and was an American, was 
all the more anxious to help Hildreth win his battle, 
to influence him in a decision that would take him 
back to Ballard, and he wanted Coming’s aid. 

The “flannel-foot” had proved a companionable 
chap, and Hildreth, in one of his despondent hours, 
had confided in Coming the story of his leaving 
college and being disowned by his father, so that 
Bayliss would not be forced to violate any confidence 
of Carvel’s by discussing the affair with Douglas. 
The Ballard collegian was getting into his working 
togs in their room, and Bob lost no time in starting 
the conversation with his companion. 

“Coming,” he began directly, “you and I are 
about the only friends HildreLh has down here in 
the Canal Zone, and it’s up to us to help him. His 
coming down here to Panama has had a peculiar 
double influence on him, both for good and evil.” 

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Com- 
ing, taking his eyes from the impressive scene 
beneath him and facing Bob. “ I think it is making 
something out of the chap, Bayliss; he can do a 
hard day’s work shoveling coal, and he is learning to 
judge men by their worth, and not by their money.” 

“True,” agreed Bob, “and physically, Panama 
has done wonders for Carvel Hildreth. But can’t 
you see. Coming, that it is the spirit that makes 
the man, and not the perfectly muscled body? If 


BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 


207 


Carvel goes back to Ballard, now that he has come 
to love hard work and to mingle with his fellows, 
it will be the making of him, and all this will be 
worth while. If, on the other hand, his spirit is 
not brave enough to make him return, he will be 
worse off than ever!” 

A screaming, screeching chorus of steam-shovel 
whistles came up from the Cut, giving the small 
army of workers in Culebra the first summons, and 
Bayliss spoke hurriedly, for Hildreth would soon 
come out on the porch. 

“Coming,” he said earnestly, “the time when 
Hildreth might have been glad to return to Ballard 
was that day in Panama City, after he had thought 
to win the big lottery prize and had been disap- 
pointed cruelly. If he could not have landed a job 
then, and we had offered to send him back to the 
States, he would have gone. Prosperity has mined 
him; he thinks he is making good in the world, 
now that his father refused to own him until he 
went back to college. Perhaps — ” 

“You mean,” Corning returned slowly, “that if 
he lost his job now, and got reduced to desperate 
extremes, that he would accept any offer of ours 
to help him get to the States, provided he promised 
to go to Ballard?” 

“It seems the one hope for him,” Bayliss said 
sorrowfully. “Here is the thing, Douglas — Hil- 
dreth regards the fact that he is making his way 
in the Canal Zone as a triumph over his father, 
and his ability to do hard work only increases this 


208 


THE LAST DITCH 


feeling. Make him feel his helplessness, and then — ’ ’ 

Further conversation along that line was rendered 
out of the question by the appearance of Hildreth, 
ready for another day’s work on the Big Ditch. 
The collegian was joyous because of his friend’s 
new-found patriotism, and he slapped Bayliss on 
the back riotously. 

“You are no longer the ‘Man without a Coun- 
try’!’’ he cried enthusiastically. “You are a real 
American now. Bob, and you can bet you are the 
hero in the Canal Zone, after that magnificent 
race!” 

“ Hildreth,” said Douglas Coming, with a thought- 
ful survey of the splendidly built young fellow, “I 
have never talked about your trouble, but now 
that Bob has cast his aside, is n’t it time that you 
returned to Ballard College, and showed the fellows 
that you have gained moral manhood as well as 
a fine physique?” 

Bayliss waited eagerly for the answer. Hildreth 
was silent for several minutes, as he watched the 
smoke of the steam shovels float up from the somber 
abyss of Culebra Cut, mingling with the vaporous 
fog that arose from the rotting vegetation of the 
near-by jungle. 

“I am sorry you asked me that. Coming,” he 
said at last. “The excitement of Bob’s race at 
Cristobal Saturday had driven all memories of that 
bitterness from my mind. I had tried hard to 
forget it, and was succeeding, when you recalled it 
all again!” 


BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 


209 


“You can never forget it, old man,” interposed 
Bayliss seriously. “It may be lost for the time 
being in moments of stress, but when you are alone 
the regret and anguish of remorse will return ten- 
fold. There stands but one thing between you and 
true manhood — that unfought battle at Ballard!” 

“Go back!” urged Corning, with an emotion that 
surprised even Bayliss. “You will have your 
month’s wages soon, and that will pay your steerage 
fare to New York City. Your father will help you, 
if you decide to wipe out that cowardly flight from 
college, from the scorn of your chums.” 

“It would be harder than ever now,” declared 
Hildreth. “Had I kept on as I was headed in 
Panama City, with the rain drenching me and 
starvation staring me in the face, then I might 
have been glad to go back to a lesser evil. Now I 
have a good job, I am in love with hard work, and 
am thrilled with the Big Ditch; it would be easier 
to leave adversity for my lot at Ballard, but as it 
is, I cannot go!” 

Bill Rosslyn, who had been over to the Culebra 
post office for that letter which came for him on 
every ship, came smilingly out on the porch, and 
tossed an official looking envelope to Hildreth. 

“Some class to you. Carvel,” he remarked, 
“getting letters from the Hotel Tivoli! Next 
thing we know, you will be a guest of the Presidente 
of Panama, over in the palace at Panama City.” 

Hildreth saw with surprise that the letter was 
from Mr. Arthur Barton, the father of Neva, and 


210 


THE LAST DITCH 


he wondered at it, for he had neither seen nor heard 
of them since the day they passed through the Cut 
on the motor-car trip. Tearing it open hastily, he 
drew out the sheet of paper, covered with a strong 
handwriting. 

He read: 

“Dear Carvel: 

“Yours and Neva’s suspicions regarding that infamous young 
rascal Jose Gonzales were well founded, and I have broken with 
him. I have learned that he is not the nephew to the Alcade of 
Bocas del Toro, but that he is a daring speculator and get-rich- 
quick schemer. He does not own any valuable land in the 
interior, though he holds options on it, and he is not related 
to the Mr. Gonzales who is with me. 

“Mr. Gonzales, who seems to be thoroughly reliable, owns 
and has shown me clear titles to this woodland property inland, 
and he is very anxious to sell it to me, so that I may form a com- 
pany to exploit the products, but this young villain in some way 
learned of this ambition, and secured a sixty days’ option on it. 
In order to get a chance to buy the Bocas del Toro land on which 
I hold options, and which he really wants, he baited me by pre- 
tending to own the land I need in the interior. 

“Yesterday I caught him in my room here at the Tivoli, 
and with my options in his hand. With a revolver I kept him 
from destroying them, and made him give them to me again. 
I kicked him from the room, and, vowing vengeance, with 
threats to keep me from getting the land I want most, he left 
the hotel. I guess with him go my hopes of acquiring inland 
woods and property that contain unlimited possibilities of 
wealth, but I still have the options on Bocas del Toro. 

“Neva and I have been looking for you to visit us here at the 
Tivoli, but you have not shown up. She told me about your 
imfortunate affair at college, and if you will take my advice. 
Carvel, go back at once! When I see you, there is something 
of importance that I have to tell you, something that will be of 


BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 


211 


interest. If you decide to come over, make it in a few days, as 
we leave for Bocas del Toro in a short time, and then sail for 
the States. 

“Yours truly, 

“Arthur Barton” 

Hildreth read the letter to his companions, and 
waited for their comments, which came in forcible 
sentences. 

“A tricky speculator! declared Coming. “He 
found out how anxious Mr. Barton is for that inland 
property of Mr. Gonzales, and he secured an option 
on it at once, probably before Mr. Gonzales heard 
of the New York promoter. In order to secure 
the Bocas del Toro land, which is more accessible, 
he is using this option.’* 

“There is no limit to what he will do to get 
it,” averred Bob, “or to destroy the options of 
Mr. Barton. We haven’t heard the last of that 
treacherous little Panamanian!” 

It was with a vague, inexplicable feeling of 
uneasiness that Hildreth went down into the noisy, 
smoke-covered Cut that morning at eight o’clock. 
It was not raining, for a wonder, but a heavy pall 
of sullen clouds lowered over Gold Hill and Con- 
tractor’s Hill, the curtain of smoke from the chasm 
was dense, and the damp fog from the jungle reeked 
with disease, so that his spirits were depressed. 

An hour of work shoveling coal into the blazing 
furnace of 33, however, restored him to his natural 
buoyancy, and he forgot the unpleasant memories 
recalled by Coming’s question. At the top of the 


212 


THE LAST DITCH 


slide, at the bottom of which MacNamara’s pet was 
eating rocks and dirt, 25 was working away furi- 
ously, and as the end of the month was near, with 
these two Lidgerwoods leading in excavation, they 
were bitter rivals for the record. 

This rivalry in Canal achievement is wisely 
encouraged by the Isthmian Canal Commission in 
every department; the men building the concrete 
locks at gates near the Pacific, at Miraflores and 
Pedro Miguel, compete with those at Gatun, near 
the Atlantic side, both in the work done and in the 
lessening of expense. There is no surer way to 
start a fight in the Canal Zone than by depreciating 
the methods used in one section or the other of the 
concrete-laying gangs. 

“ If everything goes o.K.,*' said Bill Rosslyn, from 
the boom, “we'll lick old 25 out of her boots this 
month. We are only one cubic yard behind now, 
and with you shoveling like a demon, Hildreth, we 
shall eat our way to the record!’* 

Hildreth, as he felt his iron muscles tighten and 
swell with the swing of the heavy coal shovel, was 
thinking of his marvelous physical condition, and 
regretting that it could not be used against Ballard’s 
rivals, for the glory of his college. Days of hard 
work in the Cut had given him a tireless body, 
and a back with muscles like steel ropes; his 
wind was perfect, and now the toil of the short 
Canal Zone hours did not tire him, and, better than 
all, he liked work! 

Yet he could not help thinking of his old team. 


BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 


213 


and wondering what shape the eleven was in for the 
hard games, especially the biggest game of all, that 
with Alton, which would end the football season. 
It was for this game that Ballard trained and prac- 
ticed, and even the great contest with Hamilton, so 
memorable to Hildreth, was but a preparation for 
the mighty struggle with the Black and Blue. 

So far, Hildreth’s hazardous jaunt to Panama had 
been a great thing for the pampered, reckless col- 
legian, used to plenty of money and having his own 
way. It had taken away forever his old careless, 
heedless spirit and had given him a new outlook 
on life and a knowledge of its responsibilities. The 
spell of the Big Job, the mingling with men, pur- 
poseful and determined, had awakened him to the 
fact that there were men in the Canal Zone who did 
things worth while. It had taught him to be one 
of this vast army, and to recognize ability, whether 
in a steam-shovel engineer or in an administration 
official, and it had given him a keen love for hard 
work. 

Yet, with all this, it had not brought him the 
resolution to go back and fight it out at Ballard. 
Instead, it had helped him, in the thrill of new 
experiences, to forget his cowardice, and now Bayliss 
and Coming saw clearly what the future held for 
Hildreth, when the Big Job should be finished 
and he must return to the States. Then there 
would be no thrall of the ditch to help him; he 
must make his own way in life, pitifully unfitted, 
and so near his father. 


214 


THE LAST DITCH 


It was with this realization that Bayliss was 
planning a desperate measure, — a conference with 
his father to persuade him to take Hildreth's job 
from him, and make him dependent on his friends; 
then, Bayliss argued, he would accept passage to 
the States from him and Corning, and they would 
make him promise to go back to Ballard .at once. 
The memory of what he had faced that day in 
Panama City might make him go back, if he feared 
that it was coming to him again. 

But Fate intervened in a way that shattered poor 
Bill Rosslyn’s body, as well as his ambition to get 
the excavation record for 33, and, in a way that 
Bayliss had not wanted, executed Bob’s plan for 
him. At noon the dynamite squad went past 33, 
putting into holes clean sticks of brown paper- 
wrapped dynamite, ramming earth on them care- 
lessly, and wiring the charges with caution. In 
the two hours of rest the Cut shook and shivered, 
and cascades of rock and earth rumbled down the 
hillsides as the explosions rattled windows over in 
Ancon. 

Through no fault of the wiring squad, for these 
men work with extreme care, but because of some- 
thing not to be explained, a great charge of dynamite 
that had been put in the slide to loosen it, failed 
to go off with the rest, and the deadly sticks were 
lying dormant in the mass of rock and dirt when 
Mr. MacNamara started the shovel at two o’clock. 
When the crash came Bill Rosslyn, out on the boom, 
was laughing at Hildreth’s energetic shoveling. 


BLOWN OUT OF A JOB 


215 


Without an instant’s warning, the hillside belched 
out an angry volcano of fire and smoke, with a 
fusillade of broken rock; the big Lidgerwood reared 
up a moment, toppled uncertainly, like a wounded 
monster of iron, then fell over on one side, a shat- 
tered, twisted ruin, half buried under the debris. 
Mr. MacNamara, in the “house,” was unhurt and 
Hildreth escaped with bruises from the flying 
rocks, but Rosslyn was pinned beneath the wreck- 
age, maimed and broken. A terrific explosion of 
dynamite, for the dipper of the steam shovel had 
struck the small fulminate cap fairly, had caused 
what the noon blasting failed to do, and a fearful 
accident was the result. 

“Quick, save Rosslyn!” shouted Hildreth, beside 
himself with grief. “He will bum to death!” 

The accident suspended work in that part of the 
Cut. Men came running to the scene, and a huge 
traveling crane came up on a spur track used for 
the excavation trains, speedily lifting the wreckage 
from the body of the craneman of 33. He was 
still breathing, though unconscious, and when the 
switch engine hurried up he was laid on a stretcher 
and carefully placed on the tender, for he must be 
rushed to the hospital at Ancon without delay. 

Bayliss had been near, and with Hildreth he 
accompanied Rosslyn to Ancon on the switch 
engine, having right of way over all trains, while 
a young surgeon examined the craneman as they 
swayed and rocked through the jungle. He an- 
nounced that several bones were broken, but that 


216 


THE LAST DITCH 


unless there were internal injuries there was a 
good chance of his recovery. 

Half an hour’s reckless speeding brought them to 
Panama City, and there an automobile met them, 
taking the pain-racked victim to the Government 
Hospital at Ancon, where Rosslyn was laid between 
cool, white sheets. There was nothing that his 
chums could do, so they returned in sorrow to 
Panama City, to go back to Culebra Cut on the 
switch engine. 

“He will have the finest medical and surgical 
, attention in the world,” said Bayliss. “The hos- 
pital corps of the I. C. C. is second to none, so 
Bill will have every possible chance.” 

“We must run over and see him every day,” 
answered Hildreth. “It was a terrible thing. Bob; 
everything running smoothly one instant, and the 
next a great crash that made everything black before 
me!” 

Bayliss stopped suddenly on the street, and stared 
at his companion. 

“Hildreth,” he said slowly, “this accident has 
stretched Bill Rosslyn out on a hospital cot, broken 
in body, but how about you?” 

“Why,” stammered the startled Hildreth, “what 
do you mean. Bob?” 

“ I mean that the explosion that shattered number 
33 and crushed Rosslyn,” answered Bayliss tensely, 
“has blown your Canal Zone job into space!” 


CHAPTER XXII 


HIS FIRST PAY DAY 

TT was a dismal dawn to which Hildreth awoke 
A the next morning, for a rain that threatened 
to eclipse all Canal Zone records had been falling 
in steady torrents since midnight, and showed no 
signs of letting up when the eight o’clock morning 
shift should have gone to work. But Carvel 
learned that the rain in Panama often gives enforced 
holidays to the Canal workers, at least to those 
engaged in the outdoor labor along the excavation 
of the Big Ditch, and this was to be one of them 
for him. 

As much rain had fallen already, the official 
order had been sent along the line to lay off for the 
day, and the employees who toiled in tJie Cut pre- 
pared for a good rest. Hildreth and Bayliss, the 
former out of a job and the latter prevented from 
work by the tropical torrent, decided to descend 
into Culebra Cut and see what damage had been 
done to number 33 by the delayed explosion of 
dynamite. 

Wearing rubber boots and raincoats, and bearing 
umbrellas, they made their way down into the 
murky abyss, to find that the rain, which must 
have poured down most of the night, had made 
the bottom of the long gash a sea of mud and water; 
in the steam-shovel pits the loose boards and tools 
15 217 


218 


THE LAST DITCH 


floated around aimlessly, while the flood threatened 
to enter the furnaces. The network of tracks in 
the Cut was submerged in a yellow pond, slimy mud 
trickled down the steep sides of the chasm, and on 
the banks the gorgeous vegetation of the jungle 
drooped dismally in the rain. 

Culebra Cut was deserted as Hildreth and Bayliss 
reached the bottom of the famous slide where 33 
had been eating away, with her rival, 25, hungrily 
devouring the top. Here and there a monster 
steam shovel stolidly resisted the deluge, a traveling 
crane loomed up disconsolately on a spur track, 
trains of excavation flat cars were being drenched, 
and all the spirit of the Big Job seemed to have 
been soaked out overnight. 

The big Lidgerwood, now a hopeless wreck, lay 
on one side, where the great crane had swung it to 
release the crushed Bill Rosslyn. The house was 
splintered by a furious cannonade of flying rock 
fragments, the great boom was twisted, and the 
machinery broken and ruined beyond the powers 
of the Gorgona shops to repair. As a mute evidence 
of how gallant old 33 had died in a brave effort to 
defeat 25, the dipper of the shovel, which had done 
the mischief by striking the deadly fulminate cap, 
was embedded in the mass of rock and earth. 

It was a dismal, disheartening sight, and Hildreth, 
who had come to feel a love for 33 such as inspires 
every member of a steam-shovel crew for the iron 
titan that devours the hills, was depressed. He 
pictured Bill Rosslyn, his face white and drawn. 


HIS FIRST PAY DAY 


219 


his eyes closed, and his yellow shirt streaked crim- 
son, as the switch engine had hurried him to Panama 
City, and he realized, as he gazed at the wreck, 
that what Bayliss had said the day before was true — 
the terrible explosion that had shattered the Yale 
man had also blown his job to nothing. 

Bob Bayliss, as he saw the fearful havoc wrought 
by the dynamite that had exploded too late, under- 
stood that the very plan he had pondered over had 
been worked out by a higher power than his own. 
He had come to know that while Hildreth had his 
job and was in love with the work, he would never 
return to Ballard; that bitter adversity alone could 
bring him to that desperate condition where he 
would gladly promise to return, if given the chance. 
The explosion that crushed 33 gave Bayliss the 
opportunity that he had desired, and he determined 
to make the most of it. 

“Hildreth,” he began earnestly, as the collegian 
stared at the debris of the steam shovel from under 
his umbrella, “old 33 is out of commission for good 
and all — the ditch is so near finished that her 
place will not be filled. Bill Rosslyn is done, for 
he will go home as soon as he gets out of the hospi- 
tal, and Mr. MacNamara sails for the States Tuesday 
with his family. 

“To-day you draw a month’s pay over in Cristo- 
bal — enough to pay your steerage passage to New 
York, with thirty dollars over. The Panama, 
whose steerage is great, sails Tuesday. Promise 
me that you will go back to Ballard on her.” 


220 


THE LAST DITCH 


The terrible depression of the jungle, frowning 
down on the Cut from the edges of the banks, had 
seized Hildreth, a vague unrest forced on him by 
the dreary, incessant downpour of rain, and he was 
despondent again, with the knowledge that he had 
lost his job. 

“I can’t go back. Bob,” he said dispiritedly. “I 
could never stand the loneliness and scorn now, after 
having gotten along so well in Panama. I must stay 
in the Canal Zone, where I can forget the past 
bitterness at Ballard; your father can get me 
another job, and I am not going to worry while I 
have money.” 

Bayliss was silent a while, then he faced his 
chum bravely. 

“Old man,” he began, “when my father tried 
to get you work there were but two openings to be 
found; he could give you this chance to do the work 
of a Barbadoes negro, or you might have been a 
clerk in the Administration Building at Ancon. He 
was about to offer you that, but I begged him to 
give you this ‘nigger’ job — ” 

“You — you made me do the labor of peons!” 
gasped Hildreth. “Think of my first day at work, 
when my hands were bleeding and sore, cracked 
and blistered from the shovel handle, and filled 
with grit! That night my back was nearly broken, 
and every muscle in my body was a separate tor- 
ture! And I have called you my friend!” 

Bayliss turned on him angrily. 

“I am the best friend you ever had, Carvel 


HIS FIRST PAY DAY 


221 


Hildreth!” he blazed. “Lxx)k back over the time 
since I ran into you in New York. Who befriended 
you in the steerage when you were miserable? Who 
found you in Panama City, at the end of your rope, 
robbed, and disappointed in the lottery? Who got 
you the job that kept you from utter starvation, 
but me? 

‘‘What I said is straight— I told Dad that good, 
hard labor was a test. It might make a man of 
you, show you how to judge a man by his worth, 
and shame you to a knowledge of your cowardice 
in leaving Ballard, so you would go back. Have 
you lost anything by having to make your living 
by the sweat of your brow? Would you rather be 
actually digging the Big Ditch, or a clerk in an 
(^ce? ” 

Hildreth held out his hand impulsively. 

‘‘Forgive me. Bob,” he said in sudden remorse, 
‘‘it has been the best thing that could have hap- 
pened to me, this having to get out and work. I 
fully understand that you are eager to get me back 
at Ballard, that you are striving to help me redeem 
myself. I felt that way about you when you told 
me of your trouble, over in Panama City, and there 
was n’t a happier chap alive, except you, when you 
became a true American and found a country.” 

‘‘I know that.” Bob spoke with vigor. ‘‘And 
right there in the gymnasium at the Cristobal 
Y. M. C. A. I determined to get you back at Ballard 
sooner or latter. Hildreth, I was going to have Dad 
take this job from you, to turn you out of the 


222 


THE LAST DITCH 


I. C. C. employ, so that you would have to go to 
the States. But this accident has done it for me, 
and I speak the truth when I say that Dad cannot 
land you another job at this time.” 

They were making their way up the side of the 
Cut to Culebra, and neither spoke until the plot 
of ground back of the Commission clubhouse was 
reached. Then Hildreth broke the silence. 

“Well,” he concluded, “to-day I draw my first 
pay over in Cristobal, though it may be my last 
down here, and until that is gone I shall not worry, 
ril try to get work until thirty dollars is spent, 
and then I ’ll take the last thirty for steerage to the 
States, but not to Ballard!” 

Bayliss saw that it was useless to argue further 
with Hildreth. He was confident of getting work 
again in the Canal Zone, and the possession of a 
month’s wages made him independent. When the 
money was gone, and he had not found a job, he 
might listen to reason. The day when Bob had 
met him in Panama City, Hildreth would have 
promised a return to Ballard to get himself out of 
his troubles, but now that he had earned his own 
money he felt sure of being able to take care of 
himself; the one hope of getting him to go back, 
Bayliss believed, was to reduce him to desperate 
extremes again. 

When they got back to the bachelor quarters 
they found Coming on the upper porch, his chair 
tilted back against the house, gazing thoughtfully 
out at the reeking jungle. 


HIS FIRST PAY DAY 


223 


*‘If it clears away by noon,” he said, ‘T shall 
have to go across to Cristobal to see the police 
department there on business. You fellows are 
going to be paid off, so we can run over together 
on the afternoon train.” 

“Yes,” laughed Hildreth, with a look at the 
deluge, “it looks like fair weather, with the rain 
pouring in gallons!” 

“That is no indication,” remarked Bayliss. “It 
may be coming down like Niagara falls one hour, 
and the next the sun will be trying to dry every drop 
of it. I am not a weather prophet, but I believe 
you will need a straw hat this afternoon as a sun- 
shade.” 

When they came from the commissary hotel 
dinner they found that Bayliss had hit the msirk, 
for a hot sun beat down from a copper sky, and a 
vaporous steam arose from the jungle vegetation. 
It was torridly hot, for in Panama the humidity 
causes all the discomfort, but it was a relief from 
the rain, and the three friends were in a good humor 
as they waited at Culebra station for the train. 

Once ensconced in the comfortable rattan seats, 
they chatted about the Big Job, as usual, and Hil- 
dreth commented on the crowd of Americans on 
the train, dressed in holiday attire instead of working 
togs, with their wives and children accompanying 
them. 

“Oh, I had quite forgotten it,” explained Bayliss, 
after a hasty survey of the car. “There is the 
Gorgona baseball nine, for to-day is the day of the 


224 


THE LAST DITCH 


championship game between Gorgona and Culebra 
for the pennant of the Canal 2^ne Baseball League. 
It will be played in the ball park at Colon, and there 
will be an immense crowd to witness it. We must 
take it in ourselves, fellows.” 

“By all means,” agreed Coming. “I have never 
ceased to wonder at the consideration the 1. C. C. 
has for the employees; track meets, baseball. Com- 
mission clubhouses, women’s clubs — everything to 
amuse them. The administration will give a half 
holiday almost any time to allow the workers to 
take in an athletic event in the Canal Zone.” 

“It is the best way to get good results on the 
Canal,” said Bob. “When the excavation first 
started. Coming, it was a difficult problem to keep 
a contented, dependable force down here; home- 
sickness sent men back to the States quicker than 
fever, for there was nothing here to interest them. 
I ’ll bet there never has been a man in the Canal Zone 
who at one time or other has not been seized with 
a desire to get ‘back home.’ 

“Well, the Commission did a sensible thing and 
encouraged married men to bring their families 
down, and the single ones to get married. The 
housekeeping quarters were fixed up, arrangements 
made for a commissary store where housewives 
could get everything necessary, electric light, coal, 
and ice furnished free, and houses. Naturally, with 
their homes here, the married men were content.” 

“But what of the poor bachelors?” grinned 
Hildreth. 


HIS FIRST PAY DAY 


225 


“Problem number two,” said Bayliss. “They 
had no harmless amusements at first, and in their 
homesickness they drifted to the Panamanian dissi- 
pation, a terrible thing in the tropics — bullfights, 
cock mains, gambling, and drinking, from a sheer 
craze to dispel thoughts of home. Then the Com- 
mission built the Y. M. C. A. clubhouse in every 
American town; you have seen the comfortable 
lobbies, the finely equipped gymnasiums, the 
reading rooms, and soft-drink bars. 

“If you tell this back in the States you may be 
doubted, but it is true — in the Canal Zone there is 
a force of men who study the needs of the workers 
for amusement and entertainment, who encourage 
baseball leagues, basketball, bowling, track meets, 
swimming contests, and other things. It has been 
proved that with the installation of bowling alleys, 
billiard I rooms, gymnasiums, camera clubs, and 
other things, the consumption of intoxicants among 
the. Americans fell off sixty per cent. Now you 
can imderstand why the I. C. C. encouraged the 
track meet at Cristobal, and the unique inter- 
national quarter-mile race.” 

On reaching the station at Colon they hurried to 
the paymaster’s department in the big commissary- 
building near the railroad tracks, and Hildreth went 
in to draw his first month’s wages. Notice had 
been made on the payroll of his color, so he was 
not subjected to the humiliation of entering the 
“silver” office with Panamanian peons and Barbar 
does and Jamaican negroes. He was paid in “gold ” 


226 


THE LAST DITCH 


with Bayliss and Corning, and there never was a 
prouder chap than Carvel Hildreth when the first 
money he had ever earned was in his hands. 

“Sixty dollars!” he exulted, when they started 
for Colon again. “And I earned every cent of it 
by hard work!” 

Back at Ballard, Hildreth had wantonly wasted 
that much in a month on his riotous escapades, and 
a hundred dollars had meant nothing to him; here 
in Panama, under the spell of the Big Job, the sixty 
dollars he had earned was the proudest possession 
of his life. He had taken a long stride toward 
manhood since he landed in the Canal Zone, but 
his moral cowardice still handicapped him. 

“Now,” said Bayliss, “will you go back to your 
father, and to Ballard? ” 

“No!” Hildreth’s face darkened. “I know how 
to work, and I shall not ask him for help again. I 
love the Big Job here, and I shall stay until it is 
finished; I cannot go back to college now, for it is 
too late.” 


CHAPTER XXIII 


THE THIEF 

A S the three young fellows from Culebra left 
the commissary building and started along 
the Avenida del Frente, on their way to the baseball 
park of Colon, a well-built chap who was swinging 
across the railroad tracks, coming from Cristobal, 
called to Bayliss, and the trio waited until he caught 
up with them. 

“I say. Bob,” he began, a worried look on his 
face, “the Culebra nine is in a plight, for Warring- 
ton, on whom we depended for victory because of 
his pitching, is down with malaria. You three 
chaps are from Culebra — can any of you do well 
in the box? ” 

“Not I,” answered Coming promptly, “never 
went in for baseball.” 

“I am afraid I can’t help you, Dickson,” said 
Bayliss, after introducing the Culebra captain, “but 
Hildreth here is a great college football athlete, and 
if I remember correctly, he held the Alton team 
hitless last spring.” 

“The very fellow!” breathed young Dickson. 
“Hustle out to the grounds and I’ll have a suit 
ready for you, Hildreth! We had no one to go on 
the slab, and the fellows began to fear the game was 
lost. It’s for the league championship, so pitch 
your arm off. See you at the park!” 

227 


228 


THE LAST DITCH 


He was off like a shot to convey the good news 
to his teammates, leaving Hildreth to survey the 
grinning Bayliss reproachfully. 

“Now you have gotten me into it!’* he began. 
“I haven’t pitched a ball since last spring, Bob, 
and these fellows are in the best of practice. I’ll 
make a nice spectacle of myself before that crowd 
of enthusiastic rooters from Culebra and Gorgona!’’ 

“Never mind,’’ smiled Bob, as they started again. 
“I have faith in you, old man; remember, you are 
from Culebra, and your nine must win the pen- 
nant!’’ 

They were a part of the gay crowd of Americans 
headed for the ball park, where Gorgona and Culebra 
were to battle for the victory that would decide the 
championship of the Canal Zone Baseball League, 
as the two nines were tied for first place. Empire, 
Gatun, Cristobal, and Corozal were in the league, but 
the two leaders had raced far ahead, and the season 
was about to end. 

As they passed one of the cafes along the boisterous 
Avenida del Frente, where the doors were open and 
the inevitable Spiggoty barber was shaving his “vic- 
tim,” as Hildreth dubbed him, Bayliss caught each 
of his chums by the arm, for some one was singing 
in a loud, clear tenor. Everything in the cafe was 
silent, for the roisterous crowd was listening, the 
glasses were held quietly, and the Americans 
seemed awed by the song, which was being sung 
by a man whose hair was gray. Hildreth caught 
the words: 


THE THIEF 


269 


“Close the door; across the river 
He is gone. 

With an abscess on his liver. 

He is gone. 

Many years of rainy seasons, 

And malaria’s countless treasons 

Are among the several reasons 
Why he ’s gone. 

“Close the simken eyelids lightly; 

He is gone. 

Bind the shrunken mouth up tightly; 

He is gone. 

Chinese gin from Bottle Alley 

Could not give him strength to rally. 

Lone, to wander in Death’s Valley, 

He is gone! 

“In his best clothes they’ve arrayed him; 

He is gone. 

In a wooden box they’ve laid him; 

He is gone. 

Bogus Hennesy and sherry 

With his system both made merry. 

Very hard he fought them — very. 

But he’s gone.” 

In the hush that followed Bayliss whispered that 
it was an old song of the “old-timers,” common to 
the early days when death haunted the workers 
with dread fever, before the sanitation had cleaned 
up the Zone, a song seldom heard now, unless an 
old-timer rendered it in a cafe. There was some- 
thing in the voice that had been strangely familiar 
to Hildreth — it brought back a night in a barren 
room at the Palace, when that same voice had 


230 


THE LAST DITCH 


thrilled him with wonderful stories of the Canal 
pioneers. 

Peering into the cafe, he saw the old-timer, who 
was raising his head from the table, and the collegian 
saw that the man who had stilled the riot of the 
room with the weird song was Billy Long! He was 
saddened at the sight, for here was a man who had 
given nine years of faithful service to his country, 
and yet whose natural instincts kept him from being 
worthy of notice. With sixty dollars in his pocket, 
Hildreth could forgive him for the dollars he had 
stolen that night. 

When they arrived at the Colon ball park Hildreth 
was amazed to see a fine grandstand, packed with 
a representative crowd of Americans, with a sprink- 
ling of Panamanians, a neatly laid off infield and 
outfield, and two uniformed teams in the field. It 
was so like a baseball scene back in the States that 
he forgot he was in the tropics, or that Uncle Sam 
had transplanted a nation to Panama; then he 
remembered how the Commission encouraged such 
sports, and he understood. 

The interest in the Canal Zone team league games 
is second only to the series between the Americans 
and the Panamanians, for like the Cubans, the latter 
turn out a fast nine. Hildreth, as he and his friends 
passed through the gate into the grounds, felt a 
hand on his shoulder, and wheeling, he found him- 
self face to face with Mr. Barton. 

“Carvel Hildreth, bless my heart!” exclaimed 
the promoter. “Isn’t this a queer land, where 


THE THIEF 


231 


you meet your friends at a ball game? So you 
have not gone back yet? Boy, you are doing 
wrong. Go back to your college, and your father! ” 

“It does seem queer,” smiled the collegian, dis- 
regarding his last words. “But I thought you were 
in Ancon, at the Tivoli.” 

“Neva is spending the afternoon with a girl 
friend in Cristobal,” explained Mr. Barton, “so I 
came out to the championship game. To-morrow 
we sail for Bocas del Toro, where I shall examine 
the land I expect to buy, and then we shall sail for 
the States. I guess young Gonzales, with whom I 
told you I had a break, has me blocked in my ambi- 
tion to buy that interior land, though it is rich in 
possibilities, for he got ahead of me and holds 
options on it.” 

Carvel explained that he was to pitch for Culebra, 
and after congratulating him, Mr. Barton said 
good-by to the collegian. Before he went into the 
grandstand, however, he came close to Hildreth. 

“If you need money to get back on. Carvel,” he 
said, “I'll gladly advance you all you want, for 
your father’s sake. You are the object of all his 
love and ambition, and you are hurting him 
cruelly, boy. Say the wori and I’ll buy you a 
first-class passage — ” 

“No!” returned Hildreth firmly. “He disowned 
me, and I have learned how to make my own way 
in the world. Good-by, if I don’t see you down here 
again.” 

Yet there was an ache in Hildreth’s throat as he 


232 


THE LAST DITCH 


made his way to the dressing room, where Captain 
Dickson had an outfit ready for him. He knew too 
well how he had disappointed his father by his 
career at college, and that every day he stayed 
away from Ballard was an added hurt to Mr. Hil- 
dreth. But he had told himself so often that he 
could not go back, that now he believed it really 
was too late. 

Coming and Bayliss went into the grandstand, 
where they joined 'the crowd of Culebra rooters 
and yelled themselves hoarse as Hildreth warmed 
up by tossing the ball slowly to little “Tod” Weeks, 
the Culebra catcher, who formerly played behind 
the bat for Columbia. » Carvel’s arm was stiff, but 
after a few minutes he started a perspiration, and 
soon he was shooting curves at Tod in a way that 
made the little athlete wild with enthusiasm. 

“Play ball!” called the umpire, and as Culebra 
had won the toss, they went into the field first. 
Hildreth walked into the box, and while the infield 
tossed the ball around, he gazed at the grandstand. 
It was a wonderful sight, with the cool white flannels 
of the men as a background for the gay dresses of the 
women or the brilliant scarfs of the Panamanian 
belles; in a special box sat the officials of the 
Isthmian Canal Commission, and Hildreth knew 
dignified Colonel Goethals, the “Big Boss,” as 
soon as he saw that master of the Big Job. 

Sheer luck saved Hildreth in the first inning, for 
he passed the first two batters and the second 
singled, though the mnner was stopped at third 



Hildreth's return to Ballard 






\ 


THE THIEF 


233 


base ; then a double play engineered by the shortstop 
and second baseman relieved the agony, and he 
showed his true form by fanning the third out. He 
was surprised at the fine baseball played by the 
Canal Zone teams, and at the enthusiasm displayed 
by the rooters in the stand. 

Ford, a former Amherst star, was in the box for 
Gorgona, and he showed that the tropical heat had 
brought his arm back in shape, for he dazzled the 
Culebra batters, striking them out in quick suc- 
cession, and bringing a nod of praise from the Big 
Boss in the private box, for Colonel Goethals enters 
into the play of his people, even as they enter into 
the spirit of his Big Job — perhaps his interest 
accounts for their loyalty. 

For seven innings Ford was invincible, not a 
Culebra batter reaching third base; it was the most 
marvelous game of his Canal Zone career, and the 
great crowd shouted its approval. Hildreth, by 
the splendid support of his team, got out of a' few 
dangerous places, and improving as thei contest 
progressed, he held the enemy to three hits after 
the third, and to no runs. At the start of the 
eighth inning neither team had scored, and the 
excitement was intense when Hollister, for Gorgona, 
advanced to the plate. 

That inning was a comedy of errors for Culebra. 
Hollister lifted a long, easy fly to the right field for 
what ought to have been an out, and it was dropped, 
leaving him on second. The next hitter drove a 
hot one to third, and the baseman got tangled up 


16 


234 


THE LAST DITCH 


with the ball, holding Hollister on second, but 
filling first base, and then Hildreth hit the batter 
with a pitched ball; three men on bases, and not 
one out! 

‘ ‘ I will show them ! ’ ’ Hildreth set his teeth. ‘ ‘ Oh, 
for a few minutes of my old-time speed and control! ” 

He put all his speed into the next ball, and the 
batter missed it, striking after it plunked into Tod 
Weeks’ big glove. A sharp inshoot followed, and a 
second strike, then a ball, after which Hildreth sent 
one over so fast that it was not offered at, and a' 
man was out. The second was easy, for he was 
plainly afraid of the collegian’s terrific speed, but 
when big “Pudge” Hartley, once of Penn, a famous 
home-run hitter, came up, Gorgona went wild. 
Never a game passed but what Pudge put the ball 
over the fence, and he was sure to do it now. 

Hildreth was quite cool; he was in possession of 
his wonderful control, and a desire seized him to 
strike out this heavy hitter for Gorgona. If he 
failed, the game was lost, for Pudge was good for 
a two bagger, scoring two runs, and Ford would 
hold Culebra scoreless in the next two innings. The 
Ballard collegian felt the thrill of the crisis — a 
championship hung on his pitching! 

He sent the ball over for a fast high one, and 
Pudge Hartley smiled as a ball was called. Then a 
fast straight one cut the plate, and he had one 
strike; he swung his bat carelessly, and some one 
in the stand yelled, “’Tis Casey at the bat!” 
Hildreth tried a sharp outcurve, and had a second 


THE THIEF 


235 


ball called on him, and Pudge let another strike go 
by, with a contemptuous smile. Then he set him- 
self determinedly, and Hildreth wound up for the 
decisive pitch. The collegian went through all the 
motions of delivering the swiftest ball possible, 
and Pudge swung at it with a quick, heavy swing; 
but a great roar went up from the stand, for Hildreth 
had sent in a slow drop, and the mighty Pudge had 
fanned! 

“Great work, old man!” called Bayliss. “Hold 
them one more inning and score a run, then Culebra 
will be champions!” 

But Ford pitched superbly, and the eighth 
inning closed without the Culebra team having 
made a hit. Determined to score, Gorgona came 
to bat in the first of the ninth, but Hildreth had 
struck his pace, his arm had loosened up in the hot 
sun, and his speed was bewildering as he struck out 
the first man, caused the next to pop to first, and 
fanned the third on three pitched balls, setting the 
crowd wild with enthusiasm and admiration. 

“Now, fellows,” he shouted, as he ran into the 
bench, “let’s score one run, and win the game for 
Culebra!” 

Gorgona was playing desperately, but the tide 
of victory was with Culebra, and the first batter 
was hit by a pitched ball, a sign of Ford’s weaken- 
ing. He promptly stole second by a magnificent 
slide, and went to third on a sacrifice hit. Then 
Hildreth came to bat, cool and determined, but 
Ford’s speed got two strikes on him quickly. He 


236 


THE LAST DITCH 


swung his bat, and the crowd was silent until 
Coming called: 

“Drive out a hit, old man, and win the game!” 

Hildreth knew his own speed, and he resolved on 
a desperate chance. He shortened his grip on the 
bat when the ball shot toward the base and bunted 
toward third, the runner diving for home on the 
instant. The Gorgona third baseman had been too 
far back; he got the ball, but hesitated a fraction 
of a second before throwing to first, and mnning at 
terrific speed, the collegian shot across the bag, 
the downward motion of the umpire’s hands indi- 
cating that the game was won for Culebra! 

A game and a championship had been won by 
Hildreth, and he was the hero of the Canal Zone 
as Bob Bayliss had been after winning the inter- 
national quarter-mile race in the Cristobal meet. 

A few minutes later, when he was dressing, sur- 
rounded by an enthusiastic crowd of Culebra players 
and rooters, a tall, soldierly looking man with white 
hair and mustache and a military bearing, entered 
the dressing room. A word with Captain Dickson, 
and he advanced toward Hildreth, holding out his 
hand. 

“I want to congratulate you on your marvelous 
pitching!” he said warmly. “It was magnificent! 
That of Ford was great, but you had all the odds 
against you, and won out. That is the type of 
men who have built the Panama Canal!” 

Embarrassed by the praise, and by the presence 
of the Big Boss, Hildreth flushed and was silent 


THE THIEF 


237 


as Colonel Goethals gave his hand a hearty clasp. 
A few words of commendation to the other players 
of both teams, and the best loved man in the Canal 
Zone was gone, leaving Hildreth impressed with the 
might of the man who had made the Big Ditch a 
possibility. 

After the happy collegian had dressed, Coming 
and Bayliss joined him, and they walked toward 
Cristobal, where Douglas was obliged to visit the 
police station. Hildreth was telling them of his 
meeting with Mr. Barton, and the offer the financier 
had made. 

“I guess he did n’t know that I had sixty dollars 
in my pocket,” he laughed exultantly, “that I 
earned by the sweat of my brow, too. I’ve spent 
lots of money at Ballard foolishly, but I’ll bet 
none of it ever gave me the true pleasure that 
this does.” 

He thrust his hand into his inside coat pocket, 
where the six crisp ten-dollar notes had been care- 
fully stowed away after leaving the paymaster’s 
department at the commissary building. For a 
moment he stood, a dazed look on his face, and then 
his hand came away — empty! 

“What is the matter, Hil^eth?” exclaimed Bay- 
liss, seeing the agonized look on his friend’s face. 
“You don’t mean — ” 

“It is gone! Stolen!” breathed Hildreth fran- 
tically. “Every cent that I toiled and sweated to 
earn is lost!” 

A sudden vivid thought flashed on his mind. 


238 


THE LAST DITCH 


He recalled what Coming had said to him as they 
stood on the forward deck of the Cristobal before 
the ship left New York. “I found it advisable and 
necessary to leave New York as soon as I could." 

Was Douglas Coming the thief? 


CHAPTER XXIV 

HILDRETH’S PROMISE 

H ildreth,” said Bob Bayliss earnestly, 
“either Fate or Fortune has handled your 
case far better than I could have done. First, 
number 33 was blown to smithereens, throwing 
you out of a job, and now some one has relieved you 
of your last dollar. Old man, can’t you realize 
that all this means you must return to Ballard and 
make good?” 

The three friends had returned to Culebra after 
the baseball game in which Carvel Hildreth had 
won the admiration of the Canal Zone by his 
superb pitching, bringing the league championship 
and pennant to Culebra. The town on the edge 
of the Cut was celebrating the victory over 
Gorgona, and enthusiastically honoring the Ballard 
collegian, but there was no joy in Hildreth’s, heart 
that night, for while in Colon he had been robbed 
of the sixty dollars he had toiled so hard to earn. 

Below them the night shift labored in a fairyland 
of electric lights, strung across and up and down 
the Cut, gleaming from the dark abyss; the rattle 
and clatter of the machinery, the ' clanking and 
shrieking of the steam shovels, and a hundred 
other noises, softened by the distance, floated up 
to them on the calm air. From where they sat 
239 


240 


THE LAST DITCH 


on the upper screened porch of the bachelor quarters 
they could see the exultant Culebra rooters in the 
Commission clubhouse, riotous over the great vic- 
tory that had made them league champions. 

Hildreth was despondent. Try as he might, he 
could not drive from his mind the haunting impres- 
sion that Douglas Coming had taken the sixty 
dollars; there was the strange speech that he had 
made on the Cristobal at the New York pier, and 
everything had indicated then that he needed 
money. It was true that Billy Long had been in 
Colon — for Carvel remembered that other theft — 
and any one could have picked his pocket in the 
cmsh and jam of the crowd that poured into the 
ball park. It might have been done while he was 
interested in conversation with Mr. Barton, but, 
somehow, he could not help thinking of Corning. 

That young man, however, seemed not to feel 
the weight of Hildreth’s suspicions, for he sym- 
pathized with the downcast collegian, and offered 
him any assistance in his power should Carvel 
decide to return to college. Bayliss also pledged 
his help, but only on the promise of Hildreth that 
he would go back to Ballard and graduate, no 
matter how hard a fight he had to stay. Bob saw 
that circiunstances had brought the collegian to 
that desperate condition which had seemed neces- 
sary for a right decision, and he determined to make 
the most of them. 

“Give us your promise that you will go straight 
to Ballard,” said Coming, “and we will buy you 


HILDRETH’S PROMISE 


241 


a passage on the Panama, sailing next Tuesday. 
We’ll see you through here until sailing day, too.” 

“Come, promise!” urged Bayliss. “Go to New 
York on the Panama, hurry around to your father’s 
office and make him happy, then hike back to 
college. I’ll bet you that everything is forgotten 
now, and that all the fellows will welcome you!” 

Hildreth was almost ready to give in and make 
the promise. This last blow of the cruel Fate that 
had pursued him since the Hamilton game was too 
much; it had crushed his spirit, and he pictured 
again the starvation he had faced in Panama City. 
One thing was certain; he could not stay in the 
Canal Zone without a job, and if he let his friends 
send him to the States, his father would gladly 
forgive him when he went to Ballard, and would 
recompense Bayliss and Coming. 

The loss of his month’s pay had taken all the 
independence out of Carvel Hildreth, but he had 
fought and rebelled so long against going back to 
the bitter loneliness that he had left at college, that 
even now, on the verge of ruin, he could not sur- 
render without a struggle. 

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, fellows,” he declared 
at last. “I will make one more effort to get work 
here in the Canal Zone, and if I fail, then I will 
accept the loan of enough money to get me back 
to Ballard. If I cannot get a job to-morrow I 
promise, on my word of honor as a Hildreth, to go 
back to college and graduate!” 

“Good!” exclaimed Bayliss gladly. “Hildreth, I 


242 


THE LAST DITCH 


am happy in the firm belief that you won’t be able 
to land a job, for I want you to go back now. Take 
to-morrow and do all you can to get work, and if 
you fail — ” 

“Then you have my promise,’’ said Hildreth 
quietly. “But I warn you. Bob, that I am going 
to take a desperate chance — I shall go to see Colonel 
Goethals himself.’’ 

“The Big Boss!’’ gasped Coming. “Say, old 
man, I never thought of that! And he made a 
special visit to the dressing room at the Colon 
baseball park, just to congratulate you on your 
wonderful pitching.’’ 

“That visit is what I am counting on,’’ answered 
the collegian. “He said that the Canal was being 
dug by the kind of fellows that I seemed to be, 
winning the game against big odds, and I am going 
to see what he will do to keep me here on the Big 
Job. I am going to turn in now, fellows; you 
have my promise that if I do not get work after 
an appeal to the “old man’’ himself, then I’ll go 
back to college.’’ 

For a long time after Hildreth had gone to bed. 
Corning and Bayliss remained on the upper porch, 
with the brilliant moon silvering the palm fronds 
around the house, and the delightful tropical breeze 
blowing from the cool Pacific. They both under- 
stood that the Big Boss unwittingly had it in his 
power to make a man of Hildreth, or perhaps to 
ruin him by giving him work on the Big Ditch. 

“Well,’’ said Bayliss regretfully, “we have done 


HILDRETH’S PROMISE 


243 


all in our power, Corning, and it is up to Colonel 
Goethals now. I dare not go to him and ask him 
not to let Hildreth have work; all we can do is to 
hope there is none available. If Carvel lands a 
job our last chance of getting him to do right and 
go back to college is killed; if he fails, then we have 
his word of honor that he will return.” 

The next morning at ten o’clock, after Bayliss 
and Corning had gone to their work, Hildreth walked 
over to the Administration Building, which reared 
itself on top of Culebra Hill like a huge barn with a 
corrugated iron roof. He entered and strode down 
the broad corridor to the office, where he found 
Colonel Goethals’ private secretary and his assistant, 
ready to wait on every need of their chief. The 
secretary came forward politely. 

“I wish to see Colonel Goethals,” said Hildreth, 
“if it is possible now.” 

“The name, please?” inquired the secretary. 

“Hildreth,” answered the collegian, and then, 
with a flash of inspiration, he added, “Tell him I 
am the fellow who pitched for Culebra yesterday.” 

While he awaited the return of the secretary from 
the “throne room,” as the private office of Colonel 
Goethals is called by the Canal Zone workers, 
Hildreth surveyed the innumerable blueprints that 
covered the walls of the outer office, and the number- 
less maps, drawings, and diagrams, all of the work 
along the Big Ditch. In a few minutes the secretary 
came back, and motioned him into the presence of 
the Big Boss. 


244 


THE LAST DITCH 


The “old man/’ as he is affectionately called by 
his loyal army of workers, was standing by his desk 
as Hildreth entered, a tall, military figure, with a 
finely shaped head covered with white, close-cut 
hair, and a complexion bronzed by long exposure to 
the tropical sun. He smiled a friendly greeting to 
Carvel, but his eyes seemed to pierce into the young 
fellow’s very soul, and the collegian felt that one 
must have a clear conscience before he could gaze 
into the eyes of the Big Boss without faltering. 

“Your trouble seemed urgent,” he said, in his 
pleasant, well modulated voice, “or I should have 
asked you to wait for my Sunday court. But when 
you made me remember you by your great work for 
Culebra yesterday, I decided to see you at once.” 

Every Sunday, from seven-thirty to ten-thirty in 
tJie morning, the Big Boss holds court in his “ throne 
room,” when any and all who have grievances may 
be sure of a sympathetic hearing from Cdlonel 
Goethals. From the highest official to the most 
humble peon along the Big Ditch, he is ready to 
listen to their cases, and to judge them justly and 
humanely; family troubles, charges of petty graft, 
injustice of bosses — all are poured into his ears in 
these Sunday conferences. 

“I came to ask you for work, sir,” began Hildreth 
bravely. “Yesterday in Colon I was robbed of my 
month’s wages, sixty dollars, and I have n’t a cent 
in the world. I reported my loss to the police, 
but I guess I ’ll never recover it.” 

“Work is scarce now, my friend,” said the Big 


HILDRETH’S PROMISE 


345 


Boss thoughtfully. “We are gradually cuttixig 
down the working force, and — “ 

“I had a job,” interposed Hildreth quickly. “I 
was shoveling coal for steam shovel 33, imder 
Mr. MacNamara in the Cut, but she was shattered 
by a delayed explosion of dynamite, and I was 
blown out of work.” 

The “old man” pressed an electric buzzer on his 
desk, and instantly the alert secretary was in the 
private office, waiting the order. 

“Look over the accident files,” said Qdonel 
Goethals, “and bring me the report of the wrecking 
of steam shovel 33, please.” 

The filing system in the administration office is 
so perfect that the Big Boss can press the buzzer, 
give his order, and have any report or document 
laid on his desk within a few minutes, from contracts 
with labor agents and specifications of new machin- 
ery for the Cut, down to the excavation record of 
any steam shovel, the amount of concrete used on 
a certain day in the Gatun locks, or a personal 
report on the behavior of any employee oni the 
Canal work. So, in a short time, he was looking 
over the details of the terrible accident that had 
shocked the Zone and injured Bill Rosslyn. 

“A very sad affair, friend.” He laid a hand on 
Carvel’s shoulder, and the collegian was thrilled 
at the touch. “So you were a member of 33’s crew 
when she was blown up! You shall be taken care 
of, never fear. Let me see — ever do any office 
work?” 


246 


THE LAST DITCH 


“I have never done clerical work,” began Carvel 
eagerly. “But I am quick at figures, and — ” 

“Come back on Monday at nine,” concluded the 
Big Boss. “ I shall have you provided for by then. 
Take a good rest and get over the shock of the 
accident; we have a favorable report of Rosslyn 
from the Ancon Hospital this morning. Remain 
in your quarters here at Culebra. Here is an order 
on the paymaster’s department for a week’s wages 
to run you until Monday. Good day.” 

Before he could thank the “old man,” Hildreth 
found himself out of the room and making his way 
along the broad hall to the open air, dazed by the 
dispatch with which Colonel Goethals had handled 
his case. Before the interview he had regarded the 
Big Boss as a demi-god, not to be approached by 
his subjects; now he knew him for a kindly, sym- 
pathetic man, and an exceedingly busy one. 
Already he had come to love this organizer of the 
Canal Zone, and he admired his efficiency, as do all 
who come in contact with him. 

Hildreth could hardly wait for the day to pass 
and five o’clock to come, so he could tell Bayliss 
and Coming of his good fortune. When at last the 
afternoon shift was over, and they reached their 
bachelor quarters. Carvel was waiting for them on 
the lower porch, and in a few graphic sentences 
he told them the result of his interview with the 
Big Boss. There was a silence, broken at last 
by Bayliss. 

“I am sorry. Carvel,” he said plainly. “It was 


HILDRETH’S PROMISE. 


247 


your last chance to make a man of yourself by going 
back, and had Colonel Goethals known the trtith he 
would have told you to return to college.” 

“We can do no more. ’ ’ Corning was discouraged. 
“Had you failed to land a job it would have meant 
your keeping the promise to go back to Ballard 
and win a victory where you were a moral coward 
to leave, but now — ” 

Hildreth felt that they were right, and that he 
had lost another battle, but he could not feel angry 
at the way they had heard of his fortune. He knew 
that they were treating him squarely and that they 
would have given anything to get him back to 
college. But he was overjoyed at having work 
again, and he smiled tolerantly at them. 

Bayliss drew an envelope from his pocket and held 
it out sorrowfully to his exultant chum. 

“Here,” he said regretfully. “Count it, old man, 
and see that it is all there — sixty dollars. I took 
it from you after the game yesterday at Colon, for 
I was determined to make you return. You know 
that I am not a thief; I would have paid your passage 
with my own funds, and then mailed you this money. 
I knew that as long as you had a month’s wages you 
would not start, and I wanted your promise to go 
at once.” 

Bewildered, Hildreth gazed at the six ten-doUar 
notes and then at Bob, who was watching him in 
deep dejection. For a moment he could say 
nothing, and then he grasped his chum’s hand 
tensely. 


248 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Bob/* he muttered, “ I don’t think I have realized 
until right now just what a true friend you have been 
to me. I know that I ought to go back, and I 
would have done so had I failed to get work. I '11 
stay a little longer, and save money, and then 
perhaps I ’ll make up my mind to return.” 

“It is now or never!” said Bayliss earnestly. 
“If you do not decide to be a man before you start 
to work Monday, Carvel, you will always be a 
coward. I have done all I could to save you from 
your weaker self, and now it is up to you!” 

They walked into the house to wash and dress for 
supper. Somehow, Hildreth did not feel as happy as 
he had when he came from the interview with Colonel 
Goethals; he seemed to feel that he had fallen back 
an entrenchment in his fight with self, and the 
possession of work and his month’s wages did not 
make him content. Bob was gloomy and Coming 
not much better, so they were poor companions 
for Carvel. 

“ I don’t care,” he told himself. “ I ’ll go back — 
later.” 


CHAPTER XXV 

THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 

A FTER a month of shoveling coal for number 33 
in the noisy chasm of Culebra Cut, the 
enforced idleness of the week the Big Boss had given 
Hildreth grew monotonous, burdened as he was with 
the knowledge that he had done wrong not to go back 
to his father and old Ballard. He was beginning to 
see clearly that the stigma of cowardice which he 
richly merited for leaving college would haunt him 
always, and that if he craved peace of mind and 
conscience he must return. 

Try as he might, in these days when he was not 
swinging the shovel and feeding the ravenous 
appetite of the big Lidgerwood, he could not drive 
away thoughts of his father, with the bitter memory 
of how cruelly he had disappointed him in the 
three years at Ballard. What a crushing blow he 
must have dealt Mr. Hildreth by running away from 
the storm of condemnation unjustly showered on 
him, and this after his riotous college career! 

It was on Friday that Bayliss telephoned the 
collegian to meet him and Corning at the Gatun 
police station; the “flannel-foot” was over probing 
rumors of petty graft in the locks gang, where the 
bosses were reported as having issued extra time 
checks to certain trusties, and collecting most of 
the profit from the laborers thus favored. Bob, as 
249 


17 


250 


THE LAST DITCH 


time keeper for the excavation train crews, had to 
be at Gatun to check up the trains coming from the 
Cut, so he told Carvel to come over on the afternoon 
passenger. 

Corning was talking earnestly with the police 
lieutenant when the collegian entered the Gatun 
' police station, which, as are all in the Canal Zone, 
was exactly like station houses in cities back in the 
States. Bayliss, who was chatting with a red- 
haired young clerk, called to Hildreth and introduced 
him to Casey, an alert, talkative little Irishman. 

“Sure, Bob,” he remarked cheerfully, “the Canal 
Zone police force is composed av the foinest men in 
the wurruld! Look at wan of thim Spiggoty 
cops, an’ thin see our lads! Hello, here comes me 
uncle, Dinnis Casey, who is the biggest policeman 
in all Panama.” 

The giant who strode into the police station 
seemed to deserve the distinction; he was at least 
four inches over six feet in height, and his weight 
must have been two hundred pounds, yet not an 
ounce of it was superfluous and he carried his 
immense frame with a catlike grace. He was 
dressed in the khaki uniform and puttees of the 
Canal Zone police, and wore his badge on his coat, 
while a big revolver hung in its holster at his belt. 

“This is me uncle, Dinnis Casey!” announced the 
young clerk with pride. “He was wance a mimber 
of the King’s Guard, London, where they have to be 
six fate tall. Ain’t he a fine broth of a lad, though ?” 

With a good-natured smile at his enthusiastic 


THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 


251 


nephew, the Canal Zone policeman shook hands 
with Bayliss and Hildreth, giving their hands such 
a hearty grip that it was some time before they 
recovered from the effects of it. As Hildreth 
admired the splendid physique of the man, he did 
not wonder at the perfect order maintained in the 
Canal Zone, when men such as this patrolled its 
confines; he compared Casey, senior, with the 
Spiggoty pygmies, and smiled at the difference. 

“Law an’ order reign down here,” said Dennis 
Casey, when Bayliss asked if he ever had much 
trouble on his beat. “The majisty av the law has 
made the hotheaded Panamanians respect our 
flag, an’ the Americans already did. But I ray- 
mimber whin I first came down, nine years ago; 
thin a man might expect to feel a bullet or a 
Spiggoty knife in him at inny moment.” 

“I have heard Panama was lawless,” averred 
Bayliss. “The old-timers say — ” 

His sentence was never finished, for at that 
moment a well-dressed, middle-aged gentleman of 
prosperous appearance rushed excitedly into the 
police station, panting with alarm and the stress of 
a long run. He hurried up to the desk of Police- 
Lieutenant Corrigan and interrupted that official’s 
conversation with Douglas Coming. 

“Send out a squad, quick!” he gasped. “My 
daughter has been kidnaped! Five Panamanians 
seized her on the road from the station to the Gatun 
locks and put her on a hand car! Hurry, they must 
be a mile down the railroad now!” 


252 


THE LAST DITCH 


“Some dirty Spiggoties kidnaped an American 
girl in broad daylight!” ejaculated Lieutenant 
Corrigan, stupefied with amazement at the sheer 
daring of it. “Which way did they go, man?” 

“Toward Panama City!” exclaimed the gentle- 
man, grasping at the general geographical direction 
the fugitives had taken. “Send your men to 
rescue Neva!” 

With an exclamation of surprise Hildreth had 
recognized Mr. Barton, and instantly he knew what 
had happened; Gonzales, in a last desperate attempt 
to block the financier in his intentions to exercise 
the options on the Bocas del Toro land that Jose 
wanted, had kidnaped Neva, as she walked along 
the half-mile road from the railroad station to the 
locks and Gatun dam. Evidently the plot had 
been arranged carefully, for a hand car had been 
waiting and the Panamanians were now speeding 
down the track toward Culebra. 

In a few sentences Mr. Barton explained to Hil- 
dreth that Neva had insisted on seeing the Culebra 
Cut and the works at Gatun before they sailed to 
Bocas del Toro, so they had taken another motor 
trip through the Cut, and had then come to Gatun. 
While he had been talking with an official near the 
locks, Neva had walked slowly back toward the 
station, and then it was that Gonzales and his men 
seized the girl. 

“Dennis Casey,” roared Lieutenant Corrigan, 
“take three men, find a hand car, and go after them 
treacherous villains! Shoot them like dogs if you 


THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 


253 


have to, and don’t come back without the girl — 
alive! I’ll teach the Spiggoties to violate the 
majesty of the American flag by such outrageous 
actions!” 

The big Irishman, Dennis Casey, was transformed 
into a Berserker by the very thought of such Pana- 
manian impudence, and he picked out three Canal 
Zone policemen almost as husky as himself, arming 
them with machetes, to cut their way through the 
jungle, and with revolvers. Hildreth, in horror 
at the thought of Neva, his friend since childhood, 
in such peril; Mr. Barton, wild with alarm; and 
Coming and Bob Bayliss, boiling with rage, followed 
the Canal Zone policemen down to the railroad 
station, where a hand car was pressed into service. 

“Gonzales will fly into the jungle!” shouted Mr. 
Barton. “He will take her to some native village 
and hold her until I give him the options. We must 
catch them before they get so far into the forest 
that we cannot And them.” 

While Lieutenant Corrigan was burning the wires 
to notify the entire Canal Zone of the high-handed 
abduction of Neva Barton, Hildreth and Dennis 
Casey, aided by Corning and Bayliss, were pumping 
vigorously at the handles of the hand car and it 
was tearing along through the jungle at a fast clip, 
with Mr. Barton urging them to greater efforts. 
As they whizzed past the thatched huts of the 
natives, the peons gazed in open-mouthed wonder 
at the strange sight of a hand car crowded with 
“gringos ’’chasing another loaded with Panamanians. 


254 


THE LAST DITCH 


“We must stop at Ahorca Lagarto,” called Dennis 
Casey, “an’ see if the spalpeens went through the 
village. They might drop off av the track an’ take 
to the jungle any time!’’ 

A stop was made at the native village, consisting 
of an American railroad station and one Canal Zone 
house, with half a dozen miserable Panamanian 
huts scattered along the edge of the jungle for a few 
rods. The operator at the station came out on a 
dead run, waving his hands excitedly. 

“Keep on!’’ he shouted. “A hand car just 
went through — you are hot on their trail! Watch 
out for it on the tracks, if they take to the jungle!’’ 

On again they sped, past the native huts where 
dark women were washing clothes and lazy peons 
loafing in the sun, gazing indolently at the Americans 
as they shot past. Into the cleft made by the rail- 
road between the walls of the jungle the hand car 
rattled, worked now by the three Canal Zone 
policemen and the indefatigable Dennis Casey, 
faster and faster, until — 

“Down brakes!’’ yelled Bayliss, who was looking 
ahead. “There it is, stalled on the track — they 
have taken to the jungle!’’ 

A few hundred yards ahead the hand car was 
standing on the rails, where the Panamanians had 
left it, doubtless with the vengeful hope that the 
pursuers would crash headlong into it. But they 
stopped within a few feet of it, and piling from 
the hand car that had borne them from Gatun, they 
found fresh foot tracks in the mud on the fringe of 


THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 255 


the deep jungle, where a trail led into the dark, 
silent recesses of the tropical forest. 

“After thim!” Dennis Casey plunged into the 
jungle impetuously. “They’ve got a good start, 
but raymimber, we’re Americans!” 

“Heaven help them if they get lost and hit the 
Black Swamp at night! ” came from one of the squad. 
“It hasn’t any bottom, and if they blunder into 
it in the darkness, we’ll never find a body!” 

A few minutes of rushing along the trail, which 
was deep with mud, and the jungle had swallowed 
them completely; they could see a few yards ahead 
and behind, where the trail was, but on either side 
a vast green wall of vegetation arose, thick and 
impenetrable, a vivid expanse of variegated hues. 
The tracks of the fugitives could be followed with 
ease while daylight lasted, for the mud held the 
impressions clearly, and Casey made good time 
along the trail, for he knew that when darkness 
fell the crafty Panamanians might elude them. 

The sun was just setting, though in the somber 
jungle the shadows had already begun to fall, and 
its last red rays shed an unearthly glow on the tops 
of the giant trees, with their clouds of flowers. 
There was a wild riot of hues and tints, bewilder- 
ingly beautiful, in the profusion of tropical flowers 
and plants in endless varieties, a lurid crimson, a 
bright yellow, or a dazzling white — a ceaseless 
succession of marvelous colors, all with that amazing 
background of vivid green. 

Here a giant buttercup, several inches wide, 


256 


THE LAST DITCH 


topped a slender stem fifteen feet high; there several 
lignum vitae trees, with their flowering tops, towered 
above the jungle profusion, with gnarled, twisted 
vines hanging everywhere, and huge clusters of 
large, purple grapes tempting the eye. Some of 
the trees burst into clouds of yellow blooms that 
could be seen, on the mountain slopes, at a distance 
of several miles. 

There were magnificent ferns, luxuriant grasses, 
and a multitude of smaller, yet particularly brilliant 
flowers, and there were orchids! Hildreth gasped 
in sheer wonder at these superb tropical beauties, 
the great white one, called “The Tears of the 
Virgin,” and a red variety, “The Seventh Deadly 
Sin”; then there was the “Annunciation” and the 
“Bride of Christ,” as the Panamanians have named 
them. The collegian, remembering the cost of 
these flowers back in the States, sighed as he gazed 
at the hundreds to be had for the taking. 

Everywhere there was a bewildering network 
of creepers and vines, interlacing with the trees 
and shrubbery and forming a network that caused 
the machetes to be wielded frequently. At times 
some wild animal scurried away before the march 
of the invaders — a stunted deer, or an affrighted 
tapir; on the ground, covered with rotting leaves, 
ants paraded, beetles crawled along, and the air 
was full of ghostlike moths, fluttering in the dim 
light. 

But to Hildreth the wild birds of the Panamanian 
jungle, with their gorgeous plumage, was the most 


THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 257 


wonderful sight of all. Chattering, scolding little 
gold and green paroquets were in abundance, gay 
humming birds blended with the flowers, and once, 
when they waded neck deep in water to ford a river, 
he caught sight of hundreds of white aigrette herons 
standing along the banks. So enthralled was he 
by the gorgeousness of the jungle that he could have 
loitered along; but there was Neva’s peril, so he 
hurried along in the mud after Dennis Casey. 

“On!” urged Mr. Barton, who was keeping up 
the pace despite his weight. “We must come up 
with the rascals soon!” 

The darkness was falling rapidly and it was with 
difficulty that Dennis Casey kept to the trail, 
which was faint at best. On through the slippery 
mud they tramped, bitten by the pestiferous little 
red bug and sweating with the intense humidity of 
the dense jungle. At times the machete was used 
to slash a way through the natural barriers of 
tangled and matted vegetation, and then they 
would plunge on again, up or down slippery inclines 
of ooze and mud. 

“They have circled!” Dennis Casey called out. 
“They are headed back toward the Atlantic side 
of the Isthmus; I believe they are lost!” 

“Gonzales evidently knows what he is about,” 
said Bayliss. “ He will take her to one of the many 
inland native villages and keep her, then notify 
Mr. Barton where to send the options he wants 
destroyed.” 

At last the energetic Casey called a halt, and it 


258 


THE LAST DITCH 


was a miserable little squad that paused in the deep 
silence of the jungle. The rain had begun to patter 
on the foliage some time before, and now it came 
down in torrents, the thunder crashed and rever- 
berated, and the vivid, forked lightning split the 
leaden sky. In the darkness they had lost all sense 
of direction, and they feared to attempt even a 
return to Gatun, for they might plunge deeper into 
the jungle. 

“If they run into the Black Swamp in this dark- 
ness,” breathed the Canal Zone policeman who had 
spoken of this death trap before, “it means the 
end!” 

The Black Swamp, across which the Panama 
Railroad runs at one narrow place, extends from 
the Canal to the Chagres River near the village 
of Ahorca Lagarto, and it is a stretch of the blackest 
mud imaginable, with stagnant water, through 
which hummocks protrude. It is of quicksand 
nature, and is said to have no bottom; the Canal 
Record of some years back gives interesting accounts 
of the terrible difficulty the railroad builders encoun- 
tered in constructing a foundation on which to lay 
the road bed, dumping excavation material and 
rocks until the foundation was made. 

At one time in the Canal construction the railroad 
tracks across Black Swamp sank without warning, 
carrying ties, rails, roadbed and all to a depth of 
twelve feet for a distance of five hundred yards. 
It was this desolate, terrifyingly dismal expanse 
that the kidnapers might blunder into with Neva 


THE KIDNAPING OF NEVA 259 


in the inky darkness, and Hildreth shuddered at 
the thought, for he had several times seen the ooze 
and bubbling mire, and had heard weird tales of its 
death-trap nature. 

For an hour the tropical storm beat down. Then 
the thunder died away, the rain ceased, and a most 
brilliant moon shone down on the jungle, giving 
a strange, supernatural appearance to the gaunt 
trees and the vegetation. This did not impress 
Dennis Casey, however, for he had a sudden inspi- 
ration. 

“Perhaps they are near us,” he said. “We have 
walked so long that we may be close to each other 
now. They won’t suspect it, so let’s call and per- 
haps the girl can answer before the villains can 
prevent her.” 

They raised their voices in a shout that echoed 
horribly in the dark, silent jungle, then listened in 
strained silence. Almost as an echo, sounding close 
on their left, yet faintly, there came a response in a 
girl’s voice: 

“Help! Quick — on the railroad tracks — ” 

Then the cry was smothered, as though a Pana- 
manian had laid his hand rudely over Neva’s 
mouth! 


CHAPTER XXVI 
THE BATTLE 

^‘Tj'OLLOW me!” bellowed the enraged Dennis 

^ Casey. “ Get your revolvers ready, lads, and 
shoot thim down if they start a fight. We’ll learn 
the murtherin’ haythen to run off with an American 
gurrl!” 

One who has never been in a South American 
jungle cannot conceive of the almost incredibly 
thick vegetation to be found in it; in the day it 
presents a green wall that is absolutely impene- 
trable except on a regular trail unless the machete 
is used, and the so-called trails cross and recross 
in a bewildering fashion, so that a stranger cannot 
go a mile without being hopelessly lost. Large- 
trunked trees, hanging vines, thickly interwoven 
bushes, all help to make the thick jungle, while 
underfoot lies swamp, mud, and water. 

Add to this a black darkness ahead, for the 
moonlight could not break through the foliage to 
the trail, and one has an idea of their plight. But 
the pale orb that peeped through the drifting clouds 
gave Casey his direction, and without hesitation 
he plunged on toward the place where the cry for 
help had sounded. After him the others fought 
their way, Hildreth close at his heels, eager to aid 
his friend, Bob, ever ready. Corning, the three 
260 


THE BATTLE 


261 


Canal Zone policemen detailed with the big Irish- 
man, and Mr. Barton, on whom the rigor of the 
pursuit was beginning to tell at last. 

At times Dennis Casey floundered into briers, 
scratching himself cruelly, but he kept doggedly on, 
and soon the jungle grew less dense, indicating that 
they were nearing the railroad. It was evident to 
them that Jose Gonzales had also lost his way in 
the baffling forest, and that instead bf keeping on 
toward the inland native village he had in mind, 
he had circled like a lost person in the darkness, 
and had emerged from the jungle on the railroad 
again, some distance below where he had left the 
hand car. 

The strange experiences that Carvel Hildreth had 
encountered since the day he left Ballard had pre- 
pared him for almost anything, for after the night 
with the old-timer in Colon, the big track meet 
at Cristobal, the baseball game, and the wonders 
of Gatun and Culebra Cut, it seemed a most natural 
thing that he should be pursuing the desperate 
Panamanian through the tropical jungle. He could 
not realize that the chase was full of peril, and that 
Gonzales and his men would fight like wolves when 
cornered. 

He had seen a fracas in Colon, and several smaller 
fights in the cantina districts of that town and 
Panama City, but not enough to acquaint him with 
the wild, hotheaded lawlessness of the Latin- 
American races, especially those of the Panamanian 
republic, that before the secession from Colombia 


262 


THE LAST DITCH 


could boast of fifty-one revolutions in fifty-seven 
years. 

Finally big Dennis Casey stumbled over some- 
thing and fell to his knees, but was up again like 
a cat. 

“The saints be praised!” he panted. “Thim’s 
the railroad tracks! Run, men, and we’ll catch 
the rascals!” 

They dashed down the railroad tracks, grateful 
for the solid footing of the roadbed; Casey, who 
seemed made of iron, was leading, a huge revolver 
in each hand, while Hildreth, consumed with rage 
against Gonzales and wild to fight the treacherous 
little Panamanian, was at his heels. The collegian 
would have rushed headlong into danger, regardless 
of what threatened, but Casey held him back. 

“Be careful, lad!” he warned. “Hear that 
roarin’? That’s the Chagres River, and we are 
near the Black Swamp. We have roamed around 
in a circle, like thim Spiggoties did, an’ have come 
out below where we went in, near Ahorca Lagarto. 
One misstep, an’ we’ll niver get your carcass!” 

“Go slow, old man!” panted Bayliss. “Have 
your revolver ready, for Gonzales won’t give up 
without a fight, now that he has brought the wrath 
of Uncle Sam on his head. Let Casey lead us 
against them.” 

They could hear plainly the voices of the Pana- 
manians farther down the railroad tracks, where 
Gonzales was urging them to stand and fight; Mr. 
Barton was so infuriated that the Canal Zone 


THE BATTLE 


263 


policemen had to grasp the financier to keep him 
from dashing across the Black Swamp and attacking 
the kidnapers singlehanded. The Americans paused 
just where the tracks start across the murky, for- 
bidding waste, and the Panamanians had halted 
on the other side, at a distance of several hundred 
yards. They evidently did not intend to take to 
flight, so Casey prepared for action. 

“I wonder what they will do?” breathed Hil- 
dreth, fingering the automatic that Bayliss had 
slipped to him. “ We must look out for an ambush. 
Yet, since we are on the edge of the Black Swamp, 
they cannot surround us.” 

There was a red flash some distance ahead of 
them, and a bullet whined dangerously close to 
their heads. At this Casey gave a savage exclama- 
tion and hurled himself flat on the ties, as did all 
except Hildreth, who seemed to have been changed 
into a reckless daredevil by his bitterness at Ballard; 
with a shout of defiance he dashed off at full speed 
in the direction of the shot! 

“Come back, Hildreth!” cried Bayliss, in an 
agony of fear, by his anxiety for his chum giving 
the Panamanians warning of what Carvel was 
doing. A fusillade of shots from the desperate 
enemy answered him, and one of the Canal Zone 
policemen clutched his left arm spasmodically. 
But the collegian was unscathed, and the sound of 
Neva’s voice, pleading with Gonzales to let her 
go to her father, spurred him to an unreasoning 
rage. 


264 


THE LAST DITCH’ 


He remembered when he had last talked to her, 
on the Cristobal, on the night when, after his encoun- 
ter with Jose Gonzales, he had refused to go back 
to Ballard; she had broken their friendship then 
in sorrow. Now Neva was in peril, and the thought 
came to him that he would show her he was not a 
coward. Without a thought of peril to himself, 
he dashed on in the face of the shots that whistled 
past his head. 

His position was extremely perilous, for on each 
side of the Panama Railroad tracks the Black 
Swamp, dark and mysterious, stretched out, that 
strange marsh that has baffled engineers for years, 
and ahead of him was Gonzales and his men, ren- 
dered desperate by the fate that had caused them 
to become lost in the jungle, and had brought them 
out on the railroad again, when Jose had planned 
to be deep in the forest, at some native village, where 
he would have kept Neva until Mr. Barton had 
sent him the options on the Bocas del Toro land. 
Now, circling in the jungle, he had come back into 
the power of the pursuers. 

Guided by the moonlight and the flashes from the 
Panamanian revolvers, Hildreth plunged ahead, 
holding his automatic ready for use but not firing 
lest he hit Neva. But the Spiggoties, with the 
prospect of a settlement with the United States 
for the kidnaping of an American subject, knew 
that they were doomed to a prison term. Gonzales 
fired shot after shot as the collegian came on, 
missing him. Hildreth’s friends were afraid to fire. 


THE BATTLE 


265 


for fear of hitting him or Neva, but the bullets of 
the enemy came uncomfortably close to them. 

The foolhardiness of Hildreth proved fatal, for 
in his blind anger and desire to rescue Neva, he ran 
headlong into the trap that the crafty and cornered 
Gonzales laid for him. 

With his men firing to deceive the Americans, 
Gonzales, a keen knife in his hand, crept snakelike 
along the tracks, writhing ahead, hidden by the 
shadows of the gloomy jungle; Hildreth, unsus- 
pecting this new peril, surged fiercely on. He 
might have suspected something from the fact that 
the bullets now screamed high over his head, but 
he knew only one thing — Neva was in danger! 

A few seconds more and he understood, for with- 
out a sound to warn him, he felt a strong, sinuous 
body wind about him, and taken by surprise, he 
crashed to the tracks with Gonzales’ knee at his 
throat. The moon, breaking through the clouds 
at that moment, flooded the jungle with a silver 
light and showed to Hildreth the look of fiendish 
triumph on the dark face of Gonzales; it also 
revealed to him the gleaming knife poised for a 
death blow, and he caught the descending wrist 
in a grip of iron. 

Only the days of toil shoveling coal for number 33’s 
fires could have fitted Hildreth for this mighty 
struggle with the desperate and maddened Pana- 
manian on the railroad tracks over the Black 
Swamp. It was a thrillingly dramatic fight, and 
over the combatants swept the fire of the other 


18 


266 


THE LAST DITCH 


Panamanians, driving back the furious Americans 
when they would rush the enemy. Hildreth tensed 
his steel muscles and prepared for a great writhe 
that should hurl that catlike form from his body. 

“Ah, I haf you!” hissed Jose, renewing his efforts 
to bring the blade down to Hildreth’s heart. 

But the collegian was fighting for his life now, 
as well as for the friend of his childhood, and he 
held the supple wrist in a merciless grip as he 
fought to rise. Gonzales was wiry, and exerted 
every muscle to keep Hildreth pinned to earth so he 
could drive the knife home, but with a superhuman 
effort the football right tackle arose to his knees 
with his lighter adversary, and renewed the battle. 

“Hold him, lad, we’re cornin’!” shouted Dennis 
Casey, but a volley from the Panamanians across 
the Black Swamp checked the rush. The enemy 
had no particular love for Gonzales, and to save 
themselves they would risk hitting him, so long as 
they held the Americans at bay. The duel of 
Gonzales and Hildreth, on the tracks of the narrow 
roadbed across the marsh, was clearly seen in the 
bright moonlight. 

It was a weird and terrible scene, in a strange 
setting. The dank stagnancy of Black Swamp, the 
gloom of the frowning jungle, the plaintive notes of 
startled night birds, with the pale light disclosing 
the two figures on the tracks across the waste, 
made a ghostly impression. On either side of the 
two tracks lay the Black Swamp, silent and grue- 
some; hummocks of mud arose from the still, black 


THE BATTLE 


267 


ooze, and at times the splash of an alligator or some 
reptile was heard. 

And in the grim silence, the American and the 
Panamanian fought on! 

At last Dennis Casey, wild with the enforced 
idleness, took a chance and fired past the fighting 
ligures, aiming at a moving form that he saw at a 
distance past them. There was a cry in a man’s 
voice, and a storm of Spanish curses, which made the 
Irishman chuckle. 

"‘Don’t try that again!” cautioned Corning. 
■“You can shoot past Hildreth, but it would be like 
ithe Spiggoties to hold the girl up to shield them- 
iselves.” 

‘‘Don’t hit Neva!” groaned Mr. Barton. ‘‘This 
is terrible! Can’t we move?”- 

‘‘You bet we can!” answered Casey grimly. 
"The Panamanians are shooting anyway, and 
Hildreth may be hit. We must risk a rush, for 
they are such cowards that a dash will make them 
run. Ready — let’s go!” 

With the giant Canal Zone policemen in the lead. 
Corning and Bayliss ran across the swamp toward 
Gonzales and Hildreth, while Mr. Barton, with a 
courage born of desperation, followed. But when 
they were twenty yards from the conflict Casey 
halted in horror, beholding a terrible tragedy that 
was enacted before the eyes of the startled 
Americans. 

The collegian, exerting all his strength, arose to 
his feet and hurled the snarling Panamanian from 


268 


THE LAST DITCH 


him, sending him reeling a few paces away. Then 
Gonzales, like a wolf, leaped back madly at his 
enemy with raised knife, but at that instant a stray 
bullet from one of his own men caught him in the 
shoulder; weakened by the shock and blind with 
rage and pain, he staggered blindly to one side, 
stumbled over a rail, and shot into the Black Swamp! 
Hildreth made a frantic grasp at him, but was too 
late, and the splash told of the Panamanian’s fate. 

“He’s gone!” shouted Casey, horrified at seeing 
even such a wretch as Gonzales lose his life in such 
a manner. “He’ll niver come up again, for the 
mud will stifle him. There’s no bottom to the 
Black Swamp!” 

Terrified at the tragedy, the other Panamanians 
surrendered and Neva was free at last. Even as 
the Americans stared down at the black mud and 
water where a few bubbles floated, she came totter- 
ing out to them, and was caught in her father’s 
arms. But after he had kissed her again and again, 
with a heartfelt joy at her deliverance, she came to 
Hildreth. 

“Oh, it was splendid!” she exclaimed, her eyes 
sparkling. “I was afraid you would be killed. 
Carvel, and then I saw you throw him off! It 
was a terrible experience, but thanks to the heroism 
of my rescuers, I am unharmed!” 

With the frightened Panamanians in the grasp 
of the Canal Zone policemen, and Neva walking 
between her joyous father and Carvel Hildreth, 
the party made their way to Ahorca Lagarto, where 


THE BATTLE 


269 


they could telephone to Colon for an engine. As 
they made their way slowly along, a thought came 
into Hildreth’s mind. 

“One thing is certain, Mr. Barton,’* he said. 
“You are free to go ahead and buy that inland 
property that has clear titles, for Jose Gonzales 
will never exercise his options on it now!’’ 


CHAPTER XXVII 


THE LAST DITCH 

I T was on Saturday morning that Bob Bayliss 
was seized with a sudden inspiration, and a 
brilliant idea flashed on his mind as to how he 
might influence Carvel Hildreth to go back to 
Ballard. The young fellow, now a thoroughly 
loyal American, was grateful to Hildreth for helping 
him to forget his bitter past and find a country, so 
he was intensely eager that his chum should win 
his fight at college. Remembering how the impres- 
sive sight of the locks and dam at Gatun, with a 
summing up of the marvelous accomplishment in 
the Canal Zone, had awakened in his heart a love 
for the United States, Bob formed a plan by which 
Hildreth might be swayed to a right decision. 

Tired, and sore in every muscle from their thrilling 
pursuit of Jose Gonzales through the jungle, Bayliss 
and Corning had knocked off from work the next 
day, and with Hildreth they were lounging at ease 
on the upper screened porch of the bachelor quarters 
at Culebra. 

After the dramatic battle on the railroad tracks 
crossing Black Swamp, ending with the terrible 
tragedy in which the renegade Panamanian lost his 
life in the bottomless depths, Mr. Barton had 
abandoned his plan of going to Bocas del Toro and 


270 


THE LAST DITCH 


271 


had engaged passage for himself and Neva on the 
Panama, sailing Tuesday. Now that young Gon- 
zales could never use his options on the valuable 
inland properties of hardwood forest, rubber, and 
other products, Mr. Barton had been able to secure 
options on it from Mr. Gonzales, and these, with 
those he held on the Bocas del Toro land, neces- 
sitated a quick return to the States. 

Back in New York, the promoter would interest a 
number of big investors in the project, get together 
a large capital, form a company to exploit the 
products, and then return to Panama to close his 
options and buy the lands. He had found that there 
were clear deeds and titles, a most unusual thing in 
Panama, and he was confident that a railroad could 
be built from Bocas del Toro inland; this effected, 
it was certain that fortunes could be made. The 
possibilities of the undeveloped Panama land are 
unlimited, if the obstacles of lack of roads, scarcity 
of labor, and befogged titles are once overcome. 

Neva was none the worse for her adventure, for it 
had been Gonzales’ plan to keep her a prisoner in one 
of the small native villages deep in the Panamanian 
jungle, so that he could force Mr. Barton to give up 
his options on the coveted Bocas del Toro land; the 
crafty Panamanian, according to one of his men, had 
planned to make the financier refuse to prosecute 
him, before he would have given the girl to her 
father. But his getting lost in the jungle had 
frustrated his own plot, and he paid for his desperate 
deed by losing his life in Black Swamp. 


272 


THE LAST DITCH 


Bayliss, whose chair was tilted back at a comfort- 
able angle against the side of the house, had been 
gazing meditatively out at the gash between Gold 
Hill and Contractor’s Hill, where a heavy pall of 
black smoke hovered, and the noise of the excava- 
tion in the Cut floated up at times. Suddenly he 
let his chair crash to the porch and leaped to his 
feet, while Corning and Hildreth stared at him in 
mild surprise. 

“Hildreth!” he shouted. “I am a lunatic, a 
raving imbecile! Oh, why didn’t I think of it 
before?” 

“What on earth is the matter with you. Bob?” 
demanded the collegian. “Have the harrowing 
events of yesterday and last night turned what 
little mind you ever possessed?” 

“Come with me!” Bayliss seized him by the 
arm. “You took me to Gatun and impressed me 
with the marvelous work our nation is doing, when 
I had no country; by that magnificent sight I was 
influenced, and it helped to make me an American. 
Now — well, come!” 

Leaving Douglas Corning to wonder what hallu- 
cination the hot tropical sun had burned into 
Bayliss’ brain. Bob hastened away with Carvel 
Hildreth. Leaving Culebra, with its neat, orderly 
rows of screened houses, they walked along the 
bank of Culebra Cut for some distance, until 
Bayliss struck off toward the jungle, with Hildreth 
following him in wonder. At last they reached a 
place where the jungle had once been cleared away 


THE LAST DITCH 


273 


but was now creeping back again; here Carvel saw 
endless heaps of red-rusted machinery, twisted piles 
of iron, rows of engines, tarnished from long exposure 
to the air. 

Over it all spread the fast-growing vines and 
creepers of the jungle, twining with the neglected 
apparatus, a triumph of Nature over the puny 
attempts of men to conquer it — a picture of how 
the Panamanian jungle had won over the brave but 
futile efforts of the French. For years the steam 
shovels, toys beside the mighty American equipment, 
had rotted and fallen to pieces, still unloaded from 
the flat cars; the engines, in whose boilers steam had 
never been raised, rusted with the rain, while the 
woodwork of the cars was decayed and discolored. 

“This is the famous French ‘bone yard,’” said 
Bayliss, when they paused to gaze at the melancholy 
ruins. “This is a silent evidence of the failure of 
the French administration, Hildreth. Look at the 
millions of dollars’ worth of wasted machinery, 
the ‘bones’ of a lost project! Back in the jungle 
for ten miles you can find lines of engines, 
never under their own steam, worthless and 
broken now. 

“Take a native cayuga and paddle up the Chagres 
River, and you will pass rotting old French dredges, 
hopelessly inadequate for the great work; steam 
shovels are in ruins all along the line of French 
excavation. Look at Limon Bay, with the old 
French entrance, near that of the successful Amer- 
ican Canal; success and failure, side by side! And 


274 


THE LAST DITCH 


besides what one sees, remember the amount of 
equipment we used of the De Lesseps Company, 
rebuilding what we could employ, or using the scrap 
iron for repairs on our apparatus. 

“Think of how the French failed, with their 
snow shovels and torches, their pygmy equipment, 
their careless lack of preparation for a colossal 
work, and then consider that the Americans, with 
the depressing sight of De Lesseps’ failure before 
them, won the fight with Nature!” 

There were piles of useless iron, twisted frames, 
rotten woodwork; ruins of the old French machineiy 
under the corrupt and erratic De Lesseps regime, 
now monuments to the folly and incompetency of 
that misguided Frenchman. Hildreth gazed at the 
long rows of antiquated steam engines that had 
never had fires in their furnaces, standing now in 
mournful loneliness on tracks that were streaks of 
red rust in the jungle desolation. Steam shovels 
whose dippers had never bitten into the earth, 
decayed with the dampness of the tropics, were 
green with age, and lay in broken ruins. Every- 
where in the “bone yard” the neglected and aban- 
doned machinery spoke the word — Failure. 

And so near, down in the roaring, clamorous nine 
miles of Culebra Cut, the Americans were digging 
their way to Success! 

‘ ‘ Think of it ! ” said Bayliss. ‘ ‘ When the Ameri- 
cans came to Panama a narrow path fifteen feet 
wide through the jungle from Colon to Panama was 
here; we had to beat back the jungle with machetes 


THE LAST DITCH 


275 


along this right of way. From Gatun to Colon a 
narrow ditch had been dug, and there was all this 
equipment, as the French had left it, with the 
frightful sanitary conditions of the Isthmus to face. 

“Impressing our pioneers on every hand were 
these silent evidences of the French failure — testi- 
mony that terrible obstacles were to be overcome, 
and barriers of man and nature to be passed. But 
think of what has been accomplished in these 
nine years! A nation reproduced in a jungle, 
Americans transplanted to the tropical wilderness, 
the fever vanquished, and the Big Ditch dug! Did 
we give up in despair and go back because the French 
had failed?” 

“Not a bit of it!” Hildreth declared proudly. 
“For we profited by the mistaken ideas of our 
predecessors, and made good. But you must 
remember, old man, that the men who have dug 
the Big Ditch are Americans.” 

“And so are you an American!” Bob drove the 
point home. “But have you won your fight, Hil- 
dreth, as these Canal Zone builders and big-ditch 
diggers won theirs down here against terrible odds? 
Look at the wreck and ruin of the French equipment 
before you, and understand what a sight of the 
Panama Canal, nearly finished, means to us; can’t 
you see. Carvel, the United States was at the Iasi 
ditch when they took up this gigantic work where 
another nation had failed!” 

“What do you mean by the ‘last ditch’?” asked 
Hildreth. 


276 


THE LAST DITCH 


“De Lesseps, with his mighty forces, had failed,” 
Bob went on. “The eyes of the civilized world had 
witnessed a national failure to make good. Then 
the United States, after expending years and millions 
of dollars in preparation, threw enormous sums of 
money into the finest equipment possible, spent 
four millions to drive the fever-bearing mosquitb 
from the Zone, built a new nation here, brought 
out an army of loyal Americans, and left undone 
no smallest detail that would work toward success. 

“The Panama Canal, Hildreth, as built by Colonel 
Goethals and the American administration, is the 
last ditch. Man, in his fight to connect the Atlantic 
and the Pacific by a canal across the Isthmus of 
Panama, had been beaten by fever and pestilence, 
and unsurmountable obstacles, and had failed 
miserably. With man in a last-ditch stand against 
Nature, and the United States representing man, 
we have won out at this last ditch — the American. 
Panama Canal!” 

Like a flash of light, Bob’s meaning shot through 
the collegian’s mind. In the futile effort of the 
French Company, and their giving up, Hildreth saw 
himself reflected; he had given up the fight and had 
left Ballard, instead of carrying it on to victory" 
despite all odds. Suppose his nation had aban- 
doned the great work in Panama because of adverse 
and unjust congressional criticism, or when a great 
slide bore millions of extra cubic yards of excavation 
into the Cut! 

He understood what Bayliss meant — he was at 


THE LAST DITCH 


277 


the last ditch even now in his losing fight against 
his weaker self; a victory, with a decision to go 
back, and he would be worth while; a defeat, and 
his life would be as worthless as the French machin- 
ery, desolate and ruined, in the “bone yard” of 
wrecked purpose. 

The Panama Canal of the Americans was the last 
ditch, in every sense of the word, that would ever 
be attempted in Panama, the last-ditch fight that 
the brain and resources of man were making against 
Nature on the Isthmus. The French had failed 
utterly, but the United States, undaunted, after 
years of preparation, had tried and was now making 
it a success. Had Americans failed, after such 
stupendous plans and executions, no other nation 
would have tried. 

All at once Hildreth felt how mean and despicable 
had been his cowardice in leaving Ballard, and in 
refusing to go back. 

“So I am at the last ditch, too!” he said at last. 
“And I was losing my fight. Bob, but now I shall go 
back and win! No matter what ridicule or scorn 
I must face, I shall remember the criticism the 
administration here had to endure. Dad was 
right; I should go back to college, and redeem 
myself. I ’ll show the world I am no longer a moral 
coward, no matter how bitter the struggle may be! ” 

It was the powerful influence of the Big Job that 
had saved Carvel Hildreth from himself, the won- 
derful sight of what his nation had done in Panama, 
that thrill of a mighty work that moves ‘all who 


278 


THE LAST DITCH 


gaze at it, and of itself inspires in one a desire to 
make his own life worth while, to do big and noble 
things! The days of toil in Culebra Cut had 
strengthened this feeling, for Hildreth had been 
one of the vast army that had built the Big Ditch, 
and there he had learned how to work as a man. 

This desire to redeem his wasted past, with those 
reckless years at college, had been faintly stirred 
by the old-timer’s thrilling tales that night in Colon, 
when by his graphic stories of pioneer days in 
Panama with the Canal work he had given Hildreth 
a clearer knowledge of the vast obstacles and hard- 
ships overcome than books can give. The constant 
presence of the Big Job, the gradual learning of 
the enormity of all that had been done in the Canal 
Zone, the being with earnest, purposeful men, 
throbbing with enthusiasm and loyalty to the great 
work, had slowly brought Hildreth to a sense of 
his own littleness. 

But it had been Bob’s inspiration that had com- 
pleted his redemption, when he had taken Carvel 
to the “bone yard,” and had shown him the vivid 
contrast between the French failure and the great 
Culebra Cut, alive with rattling machinery and 
the vast industry of American success. He had 
impressed on the collegian’s mind how similar his 
giving up had been to that of the French Company, 
and now, as they walked back to Culebra, gazing 
down into the gorge of the Cut, Hildreth was filled 
with a quietly determined resolve that he, an 
American, would win his fight at the last ditch. 


THE LAST DITCH 


279 


after one failure, even as the United States, when 
the French had lost out, had won the fight with 
Nature! 

**1 am going back to Ballard,” he said firmly, 
and Bayliss threw an arm across his shoulders 
happily. ‘T’ll sail on the Panama Tuesday, and 
when I get to college. Bob, I ’ll play on the scrub 
team if I must, but I’ll play the game!” 

“Now you are a true American!” exclaimed 
Bayliss. “Go back and make your father glad, 
win your fight at college, and make the rest of your 
year there worth while. Old man, you have won 
out at the Last Ditch!” 


CHAPTER XXVIII 


BACK AT BALLARD 

I T was with a feeling almost of terror that Carvel 
Hildreth heard the brakeman call out “Stan- 
ford!” as the six-twenty express neared the college 
town. He gazed eagerly from the car window, 
waiting for the moment when the train would round 
a curve and he could command a sight of College 
Hill, atop of the grade that inclined from the center 
of the town upward. It had been a month and a 
half since he had left the campus, crushed under 
the blow that had fallen on him; now, as he returned, 
he wondered what his welcome would be. 

A moment more, and his heart gave a great leap 
as he saw the tall spire of Parker Chapel, the gleam- 
ing white stone of the gymnasium, the towers of 
the dormitory buildings, and through a rift in the 
trees of the campus he caught sight of the goal 
posts on the football field. A great love for his 
alma mater surged in his heart, a thrill of true 
college spirit; then he thought of the sensation he 
would create when he strode across the campus. 
Would he face that old scorn and ostracism that he 
had fled from, or had time lessened the bitterness 
of his chums against him? 

A week before, Hildreth had sailed from Cristobal 
on the Panama, regretfully leaving the Canal Zone 
and the marvelous scenes of the Big Ditch. But 
280 


BACK AT BALLARD 


281 


there had been a bewildering whirl of happenings 
between the moment when he made his decision 
to return and the sailing hour. When he and 
Bayliss had gotten back to their bachelor quarters 
at Culebra, where they found Coming waiting on 
the porch, Bob had told him of Hildreth’s victory 
over himself; the young man had grasped the 
collegian’s hand in a grip that hurt, and then 
he had said: 

“I am going back to New York with you, Hil- 
dreth — my work here is done.” 

“Why,” Hildreth was surprised, “what do you 
mean. Coming?” 

“On the day you rushed from your father’s office 
in the Bankers’ Building, Carvel,” responded Com- 
ing, “ I was waiting in the outer office. Your father 
summoned me in haste, and hurrying to the door 
with me he pointed to you, waiting at the elevator 
shaft, and said, ‘Coming, stay with my boy wher- 
ever he goes, and do not let him starve. Let him 
leam by bitter experience, but don’t let him suffer 
too much, and if you can, make him go back to 
college.* That is why I came to Panama on the 
Cristobal with you.” 

“But I don’t understand — ** began Hildreth. 

“I am a detective,” smiled Corning. “That is 
why I got a job as ‘flannel-foot’ in the Canal Zone 
with such ease. But I came to regard you as a 
friend, and if you will accept my sincere friendship. 
I’ll be glad.” 

Hildreth, as he shook Coming’s hand heartily, 
19 


282 


THE LAST DITCH 


understood things better; he knew now the meaning 
of the young man’s words when he had said it was 
necessary and advisable for him to leave New York 
at once. So his father, though he had disowned 
him until he went back to college, could not cast 
him adrift entirely! The collegian resolved that 
the rest of his year at Ballard should bring gladness 
to Mr. Hildreth. 

“Don’t tell Dad that I have gone back,” he said. 
“I’ll go straight to old Ballard as soon as I get to 
New York, and wire him myself. Give me the joy 
of making him happy again, Coming.” 

“Sure!” agreed Coming, rejoicing at Hildreth’s 
decision. 

Then Bob Bayliss had surprised and made his 
chum wild by informing him that he, too, would 
be a fellow passenger on the Panama, as he had 
talked with his father and they had decided that 
since he was a patriotic American, he ought to 
graduate from college. So he was going back to 
complete his course at Hamilton, and the three 
friends would sail together, with Mr. Barton 
and Neva. 

Hildreth had sixty dollars, for he returned the 
paymaster’s order to Colonel Goethals on his 
decision to go back to college, and Bayliss insisted 
on adding enough to buy Carvel a first-class passage 
to New York, so that it would be a happy party 
that sailed on the Panama, It was with keen regret 
that the collegian left the Canal Zone, for he was 
thoroughly filled with the spirit of the Big Job, but 


BACK AT BALLARD 


283 


it had been the powerful influence of it that had 
helped him to conquer himself. 

The voyage had been delightfully short, as the 
Panama steamed fifteen knots an hour, and the 
Caribbean was soon crossed; then the white-beached 
West Indies were left in the foaming wake. When 
the ship headed up the Atlantic coast the joy of 
the prodigal increased every day, as the log reeled 
off the miles between him and his college. Finally 
Sandy Hook was reached, the pilot taken aboard, 
and after the usual delay at the quarantine, the ship 
docked at the New York pier. After their baggage 
had passed the customs Hildreth’s first act, when he 
had said good-by to Mr. Barton and the happy 
Neva, was to buy a newspaper. 

“Ballard plays Alton Saturday,” he read. “I’ll 
be there in time for the big game. Bob! But what 
does this mean? ‘The Gold and Green misses the 
services of Hildreth, who did such great work in the 
Hamilton game, and who afterward mysteriously 
disappeared from college. With him in the line, 
a victory over Ballard’s greatest rival would be 
assured.’ ” 

“They have forgiven you, perhaps,” smiled 
Bayliss. “You were foolish to go away, for you 
can’t judge the sentiment of such a bunch of fellows 
after a football defeat. You have won your fight, 
though, and even if there is feeling against you, 
I know you will stick now.” 

“ I will! ” said Hildreth, with a quiet firmness that 
convinced Bob his redemption was complete. 


284 


THE LAST DITCH 


, ‘‘Well, I won’t say farewell now,” Bob laughed 
at parting. “I’ll go back to Hamilton and get 
settled, and then I ’ll run over to the Ballard-Alton 
game; I want to see you in the line, old man.” 

Hildreth had taken the first train he could get for 
Stanford, as the Panama had been half a day late 
at New York, and now, as it drew into the station, 
he was hopeful and despondent by turn. The 
memory of the bitter, lonely past became stronger 
as he saw College Hill, and he dreaded the hard 
battle he might have to fight. He had won the 
struggle over himself that day when he gazed at the 
French “bone yard” near Culebra, but the future 
was still uncertain and dark. 

But what could all the commotion and riot on the 
station platform mean? As he stepped from the car 
he saw Brannock, Dad Hickson, Captain Bill Hoke 
with Sig at his heels, little Cupid Cavanaugh, 
staid Grinder Graham, Pop Corrigan, Chip Crad- 
dock, and all his old chums, while it seemed that 
the entire student body had turned out to meet him. 
Ballard pennants were waving wildly, the fellows 
were all shouting lustily, and they broke into a yell 
as Hildreth appeared. Bill Hoke waved his arms 
and shouted excitedly: 

“There he is, fellows! The gamiest, pluckiest 
right tackle Ballard ever knew; stayed the last half 
of a game with a battered side, and stuck when he 
was dead with the pain! The yell for Carvel 
Hildreth, all together!” 

There was a mighty roar from a hundred throats. 


BACK AT BALLARD 


285 


and the tears came to Hildreth’s eyes as he heard 
his name at the end of the dear old Ballard yell. 
This was the homecoming that he had dreaded! 
He had been a moral coward to nm away, but down 
in the tropics of Panama, under the power of the 
Big Job, he had won his fight with self, and this was 
his reward! He was soon engulfed in the riotous 
crowd, with everybody shaking his hand or thump- 
ing his back, and Biff Hogarth, pale but happy, was 
at his side. 

“You old villain!” Captain Bill Hoke tried to 
conceal his emotion. “Why didn’t you tell us 
about that hurt side? You let us act like a bunch 
of cads, and no wonder you left college. As soon 
as Biff came to his senses he asked how your side 
was, and told how he knew it was bruised ter- 
ribly, and that he dug it with his elbow before 
that last rush, but you had gone. We put ‘ads’ 
in the paper, but they never found you.” 

Singing and cheering, the procession of students 
accompanied the right tackle up College Hill. 
Coach Collister, on his way downtown, gave a glad 
welcome to Hildreth, and gazed at him with assumed 
sternness. 

“Report for practice to-morrow,” he commanded 
severely. “The very idea of your leaving college 
when we needed you so! I guess you are in poor 
training, but we need you in your old place against 
Alton.” 

Hildreth grinned as he thought of his iron muscles 
and perfect wind, gained by his work shoveling coal 


286 


THE LAST DITCH 


in Culebra Cut for steam shovel 33. His frame 
had put on a muscular development that would 
make him able to stand with ease the grueling 
punishment of a football game, and he was eager 
for the fray. 

The return of Carvel Hildreth to Ballard was in 
the nature of a triumphal march, for the football 
squad was wild with joy at having him back, and 
the students were eager to make amends for their 
misjudging of him. In his heart Hildreth blessed 
the impulse that had made him decide to sail for 
Panama, for had he gone somewhere else than to 
work on the Big Ditch, he might not have been 
made a man by the sight of the stupendous under- 
taking. His life might have been wasted, when back 
at his college the scorn and condemnation of his 
chums had been turned to remorse and admiration 
by Biff Hogarth’s explanation. 

Then he wondered how the students had known 
on what train he would return, or how they had 
heard he was coming back at all, and he asked 
Bill Hoke. 

“I got a telegram from New Ycrk,” smiled the 
football captain. “It was signed ‘Douglas Corn- 
ing,’ whoever he is. We decided to do things up 
properly, for we had acted wretchedly to you 
after the Hamilton game, and even Sig got wild 
when he heard you were coming.” 

Sig was frisking around Hildreth in an ecstasy of 
delight, and it was all that was needed to make the 
prodigal’s happiness complete. It was dark when 


BACK AT BALLARD 


287 


the crowd of students turned into Campus Square, 
but the lights in the “dorms” were agleam, fellows 
were singing in Denning and MacCabe, while a 
banjo strummed as of old in Wilton. 

At the sound of the cheering in the square, 
windows went up, heads were thrust out, and 
Hildreth received an ovation that ended only when 
he stammered out a speech, telling the fellows 
brokenly that it was “all right now, and they 
would lick Alton by a big score!” Then Hildreth 
was caught up and borne to his old room in Dwight, 
where Grinder Graham had moved back, and could 
not find words to express his joy at having his 
old roommate again. 

Until midnight Hildreth held a reception in his 
room, and the football fellows rejoiced at his return. 
The students kept piling in, to make amends for the 
undeserved scorn they had heaped on Carvel after 
the Hamilton game, and all the time he was shaking 
hands the collegian was thinking — suppose he had 
lost that fight down in Panama and had not come 
back to Ballard! He would have missed this 
comradeship restored, the chance to make good at 
college and please his father. 

At last Bill Hoke, who ruled the football squad 
with an iron hand, interrupted. 

“We are near the last and biggest game of the 
season,” he said, “and here you football chaps are 
up until midnight! To bed, the whole mob of you! 
Hildreth, hit your couch at once, and get in shape 
for the best game of your career!” 


288 


THE LAST DITCH 


One by one the students left, until at last Hildreth 
and Grinder Graham were alone in their old room. 
The serious, bespectacled little grind was overcome 
with shame at the memory of how he had flung 
away from his roommate after that fatal last rush, 
and he tried to give his chum an idea now of his 
self-condemnation. 

“Let up on that. Grinder!” said Hildreth firmly. 
“You were not to blame. It was a bad case against 
me, with Biff knocked out. I don’t care what Bill 
Hoke says about bed, you take a seat, and I’ll 
tell you how the Panama Canal has helped me.” 

For an hour he held Grinder Graham thrilled as 
he related his adventures in Panama and the Canal 
Zone, telling of the lottery disappointment, of the 
encounters with Jose Gonzales and the old-timer, 
of the track meet, of the awakening of Bob Bayliss 
to patriotism, and of his own redemption by the 
influence of the Big Ditch, inspiring him to greater 
things. 

“You were the one who made me see how I had 
wasted my college years and hurt my father, 
Grinder,” he finished, “and even though circum- 
stances drove me away to Panama, where the Big 
Ditch and Bayliss saved me, you deserve a large 
share of the credit. To-morrow morning you and 
I will go to the station again, and I’ll send Dad 
another telegram — ‘Am back at Ballard; won out 
at Last Ditch!”* 


CHAPTER XXIX 


THE END 

H ildreth practiced faithfully the few days 
remaining before the Big Game, and brushed 
up on the signals, showing Coach Collister that he 
was in the best of physical trim, and he stopped the 
rushes of the hard-hitting scrubs with ease. The 
fellows were wild over his return to the eleven, 
and promised themselves all manner of victory over 
Alton. But Captain Bill Hoke expected a hard 
game, and he rejoiced that the star right tackle was 
back in the line-up. 

The day of the game came at last, and with it 
Bob Bayliss, whose face was aglow as Hildreth told 
him of the riotous reception at the station, and of 
what a mighty welcome his chums had given him. 
Bob informed him that he had settled down to college 
life at Hamilton, and that he intended to go in for 
track work, in order to make a faster quarter-mile 
record than the one on Roosevelt Avenue, Cristobal, 
when he had defeated Nunez. 

“But I haven’t heard from Dad,” Hildreth said 
sorrowfully, “though I wired him the day after 
I got back. Perhaps he won’t own me again.” 

When the time for the game arrived, Hildreth, in 
his old football togs, trotted out on the field again, 
thrilling at the great roar that went up from the 
stands at sight of him. It was a greater contest 


289 


290 


THE LAST DITCH 


than that with Hamilton, and it seemed that the 
entire Alton student body had accompanied their 
team, judging from the volume of sound their 
rooters put forth. It was the biggest game of all, 
and the Ballard right tackle was wildly happy as he 
ran through plays in practice. 

Soon he would be with his teammates again, the 
past forgotten, battling for the Gold and Green, 
with Brannock at his side, where Biff Hogarth had 
been. All the bitterness was gone from his heart 
now, and he was glad to be back. 

As the referee’s whistle sounded for the kick-off 
Hildreth chanced to look up in the packed stands, 
where the riot of Gold and Green pennants waved; 
he recoiled with surprise, for he saw Mr. Barton 
and Neva, Douglas Corning, and his own father! 
Neva waved a pennant at him, his father nodded 
again and again, and Corning shook hands with 
himself, grinning at his friend’s amazement. 

Then the plunk of the Alton fullback’s toe against 
the pigskin sounded, the yellow oval sailed toward 
the Ballard right halfback, and with a fierce exulta- 
tion at being in the game once more. Carvel Hildreth 
flung himself into the interference for the runner, 
and crashed into the enemy’s onrushing right end. 

The Ballard- Alton game was almost a repetition 
of >the struggle with the Hamilton eleven early in 
the season. At first, while the Gold and Green 
players were fresh, and spurred on by the sight of 
Hildreth, their fast, snappy play swept the heavy 
enemy from their feet, and before the half was 


THE END 


291 


ended Ballard had scored a touchdown and had 
kicked goal. Hildreth was playing like a demon, 
flinging his body recklessly at each rush that came 
at him, feeling a wild joy surge through him as he 
did so. 

'‘I won’t jab you in the ribs as Hogarth did!” 
panted Brannock, fighting at his side. 

But little by little the constant line bucking of the 
enemy’s heavy backfield began to wear out the Gold 
and Green linesmen, and toward the end of the last 
quarter the Alton eleven advanced the ball steadily. 
Whether or not the idea came from a memory of 
Hildreth’s action in the Hamilton game, the Alton 
quarter now directed a series of old-fashioned line 
plunges, tandems, and cross-bucks at Hildreth, 
whose body, toughened by work in Panama, stood 
the attack nobly. 

‘‘Hold them!” breathed Brannock. “The back- 
field will back you up, and they won’t score this 
time. It’s your chance, old man!” 

Hildreth knew what he meant — that to make his 
vindication complete nothing could be more effective 
than his holding the enemy’s rushes in check, and 
bringing a victory to Ballard in the big game. 
With the hammering campaign against him con- 
tinuing desperately, it became a mechanical action 
for him to throw himself low and forward as a rush 
started, and his body, iron though it was, became 
bruised and battered. But his spirit was buoyant, 
for all his misery was ended, and he fought with a 
grim pleasure now. 


292 


THE LAST DITCH 


Slowly, as in the Hamilton game, Ballard was 
forced back toward her own goal line. Rush after 
rush netted Alton small gains, but the progress was 
slow, and Bill Hoke, after a signal from a collegian 
on the side line, called to Hildreth: 

"‘One more minute, old man! We are at the last 
ditch now, and if we can hold them, the game is 
ours!” 

The last ditch! A flood of vivid memories swept 
over the right tackle as he heard the words. Again 
he stood on the Canal bank, with the ruins of the 
French machinery before him, viewing the mighty 
fight that his country was winning, where others 
had failed. The thought nerved him, put new 
strength into his worn frame, and he crouched low 
for the powerful tandem that was starting at him. 

It came, and like a hawk he swooped down at it, 
grasping in both arms the knees of the opposing 
tackle, and bringing him low. Over their prostrate 
bodies the rush tripped and fell, and the man with 
the ball was slammed to the turf a bare three yards 
from the goal line, while the time keeper’s whistle, 
announcing the end of the game, was sweet music to 
the ears of the Ballard collegians. 

“Hildreth! Hildreth!” was the cry, but the 
blood-stained, dust-grimed hero was making at 
full speed toward the stand. After him trailed the 
enthusiastic students, waiting like wolves to pounce 
on him when he started for the gymnasium. 

Carvel, sweeping the crowds with eager gaze, 
felt a hand on his padded shoulder, and turning, he 


THE END 


293 


faced his father. Instantly their hands met in a 
firm clasp, and each knew that the other tmderstood 
the glad promise of the future, and that the past was 
wiped out. 

“ I am so glad, my boy ! ” said Mr. Hildreth simply. 
“You won your fight, and came back, as I hoped 
you would. Coming here told me the whole story, 
after I got your telegram, and I came to see you 
play this last game. Your return here was a glad 
one, but your victory is fully as great as though it 
had been bitter, for when you made your decision 
you did not know that you were understood.” 

Mr. Barton and the smiling Neva, with Corning, 
came toward Hildreth, and the collegian was soon 
blushing at the ardor of their congratulations on 
his great playing. 

“Now I’ll tell you something. Carvel,” said Mr. 
Barton. “Your father is to be my partner in the 
company that is to market the products of that 
Panamanian land, of which you know the history. 
You finish your year at college, and we may need 
you down in Panama, when we begin operations at 
Bocas del Toro and on the inland property.” 

“You are worthy of our confidence now,” smiled 
his father, “so you will be a valuable aid to us, 
with your experience down there. I am proud of 
you. Carvel; I knew that you had the fighting 
spirit, and I never lost faith that you would win out 
at last!” 

“I was sure he would,” agreed Neva. “You 
should have seen him fighting on the tracks over 


294 


THE LAST DITCH 


Black Swamp with Gonzales! After I saw him 
then, I knew he would come back to Ballard.” 

That night Ballard celebrated the great victory- 
over Alton that marked a glorious close of the 
football season, and after midnight, when at last 
the bonfire had died to red embers and the hoarse 
students had left Hildreth’s room. Bob Bayliss, who 
was to stay that night with his chum, gazed with 
pride at Carvel, who was looking out over the 
campus, too happy to speak. 

He was back at Ballard, with his senior year 
before him, in which he had an opportunity to win 
scholastic honors, and to atone for the wasted 
years he had spent in reckless escapades. All the 
old bitterness was gone, and with it the careless, 
wasteful nature that had been his; the work in the 
Culebra Cut had taught him the joy of accomplish- 
ment, and the spell of the Big Job had brought him 
an earnest purpose in life, the desire to do something 
worth while. 

It had been less than two months since he left 
college, a coward, but the days in exile had brought 
him manhood, and had redeemed him. Now, as 
he turned from the window to the fellow who had 
stuck by him since they met in New York, to whom 
he had given a country, and who had helped him 
conquer himself, with a smile he grasped the hand 
of Bob Bayliss. 

‘‘Old man,” he said unsteadily, “you are going 
through Hamilton, and I shall graduate here at 
Ballard this June. In 1915 the Big Ditch will be 


THE END 


295 


opened to the ships of the world, and the fleets of 
the nations shall pass from ocean to ocean, through 
the achievement of the Americans! I may be 
down there after graduation, working for Dad’s 
and Mr. Barton’s company developing the Panama 
land, but when the Canal is officially thrown open. 
Bob, you and I will be there. 

“We shall remember that we helped make a 
success of the most colossal undertaking ever 
accomplished by man. We shall witness the final 
act of all, the union of oceans, and thrill with the 
knowledge that we are a part of that army which 
built it. It will be a grand moment. Bob, and you 
and I must be there, where I won my fight!’’ 

“I am with you,” responded Bayliss softly, “to 
the last ditch, Hildreth!” 


A TALE OF THE PONTIAC WAR 

THE WHITE 
CAPTIVE 

By R. CLYDE FORD 

Illustrated by C. L. COLE 

In the year 1760, when Detroit was surrounded by a 
stockade and the Union Jack waved above it, Willy Lang- 
ford, an English boy, is redeemed from Indians by Wa- 
boose, and enters the service of the quartermaster of the 
fort. Separated for years from his mother, herself a cap- 
tive, the object of his life is to learn her whereabouts and 
secure her freedom. As factor’s clerk and frontiersman, 
he experiences many thrilling adventures; he takes part 
in the Indian warfare of the day and is wounded in the 
Battle of Bloody Run, when Pontiac, the famous Ottawa 
chief, engages in his great combat with the English. The 
graphic and accurate descriptions of such tragic events, 
of the life and customs of Indians and early settlers, as 
well as of lake and forest scenery, cannot fail to appeal 
strongly to the imagination of a boy. 

Cloth, 12mo. Net $1.00 


Write for a Complete Catalogue of “ Books Worth While" 


RAND McNally & CO. 

CHICAGO NEW YORK 


C 118 








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